Delays in the EMS Response Time and the Evacuation of Patients in High-Rise Buildings in a New Town in Korea

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To estimate the arrival-to-patient contact delays when accessing patients in high-rise buildings and evacuating them to the hospital, compared with accessing patients in ground-level premises. METHODS: This was a prospective study carried out, between 20 and 31 October, and between 30 November and 7 December, 2008, on emergency calls received at the Bun-dang fire station. The first thirty-five consecutive cases were enrolled in two groups where appropriate evacuations in high-rise buildings, and evacuations in ground-level premises, respectively. Cases of road traffic accidents and road calls were excluded because they did not entail crew entering into buildings. The times were clocked using a stopwatch by an emergency medicine resident riding with the paramedics. We set forth to determine whether the intervals, recorded in the high-rise group, between 1) time when the ambulance arrived at the scene and time of arrival at the patient's side; 2) time of leaving the premises with the patient and time when the ambulance starts its journey to the hospital, would differ significantly from that recorded in the ground-level group. RESULTS: 35 runs were analyzed in each group. The median value from arrival to patient contact was 0.34 minutes for the ground-level group compared with 2.08 minutes for the high-rise group (95% CI p=0.000). The median value from the time of leaving the building with the patient to the time when the ambulance turned its engine on to start its journey to the hospital were 1.00 minutes and 3.08 minutes for the ground-level and high-rise groups, respectively (95% CI p = 0.000). CONCLUSION: There were significant delays when accessing and evacuating patients in high-rise buildings. We suggest modifications to buildings and elevators to help minimize these delays.