The role of the Helicopter Emergency Medical Service as support for ground emergency medical services

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: An essential link in the rescue system is the Polish Medical Air Rescue (PMAR). In Poland, PMAR helicopters are stationed at 21 permanent bases. Air teams are available directly to the place of the incident and as inter-hospital transport. They also play a significant role when they reach the patient first before the arrival of the ground emergency medical services (EMS). MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study was conducted based on data from 2017-2018 covering 687 missions of "Rescuer 19" - a helicopter stationed in Sokołów Podlaski (eastern region of central Poland). The results of own research were expressed in the form of arithmetic means and average standard errors. To determine the relationship between variables, the Chi-square, and r-Pearson test was used. All results were considered significant at p <0.05. RESULTS: In 2017, the PMAR team performed 250 missions, and in 2018 - 437. "Rescuer 19" in 71.9% of cases was available to support ground EMS, and only 17.8% was available alone. The average time of arrival to call in 2017-2018 was M=20 [min] (SD=8.86), from the start M=17 [min] (SD=7.32), duration of the mission since the call M=114 [min] (SD=49.33), from the start M=108 [min] (SD=50.71), and the distance M=40.4 [km] (SD=25.16). CONCLUSIONS: The vast majority of PMAR missions are HEMS flights. An air ambulance team is available in most cases as support for ground EMS. Only every fifth HEMS mission is carried out by PMAR alone, without ground EMS.

Keywords

• hems
• pmar
• medical air rescue
• emergency medical services
• ambulance
• rescue flights