The study analyzed helicopter transport data from a five-county area in Maryland serviced by both traditional ambulances and the Maryland Medevac Helicopter Program. The data contained 2,200 trauma cases from 2000 to 2011.
Using GIS technology, researchers calculated the alternate time of transport had the patient been taken to the same hospital using an ambulance.
The results showed 31 percent of the patients that were taken to a hospital in a helicopter could also have been transported by ambulance and still arrived within 60 minutes, considered the “golden hour” for trauma treatment.
“Once a trauma center has decided it needs to accept a patient, the question becomes, how can you most safely get them there?” says Zac Ginsberg, MD, a fellow at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center and one of the study’s co-authors. “So what GIS, when applied to this medical and clinical decision-making moment allows, is the accurate assessment of the time costs… We must still take into account the severity of the patient, but from this research, we have the answer to a question that has not been able to be answered accurately: From where you are, how long is it going to take to get to the trauma center?”
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