Articles: emergency-medical-services.
-
The air medical industry has seen dramatic changes in the 1980s, and there will be still more changes in the years to come. But are hospital-based air medical programs cost-effective? That depends on who is answering the question. An air medical program with a specially trained team can improve the quality of medical care to critically ill or injured patients. ⋯ Finally, an air medical program can also decrease the number of ground ambulances needed for long-distance patient transports both in highly populated urban or rural areas. This will free more ambulances for local coverage. To the sponsoring hospital, the costs of operating an air medical program are high.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
-
The French emergency medical system (EMS) is the Service d'Aide Médicale Urgente (SAMU). In case of mass casualties, involving 100 simultaneous victims, SAMU has developed a disaster plan, "The White Plan." This plan is closely correlated to the Red Plan of the Fire Department, to provide advanced life support (ALS) at the incident site, followed in a continuum by medical transport and hospitalization in the appropriate services. ⋯ This objective was approached by adopting a formal protocol designed for each city. In France, the medical organization for the treatment of casualties is operated by anesthesiologists who are qualified to perform ALS, preanesthetic evaluation en route, anesthesia for the multitrauma patient, and postanesthetic resuscitation in a continuum from the accident scene to the ICU.
-
Because of discontinuation of base hospital participation, paramedics in a large urban zone of a California emergency medical services (EMS) system serving 1.1 million persons went on emergency standing orders for nearly all calls requiring advanced life support. Subsequently, the base hospital resumed medical control function under limited standing orders. ⋯ There were significant differences in total prehospital care times and at-scene times between the control group and the two standing order groups (P less than .01). There are important implications to EMS systems that use extensive base hospital contact.