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Sun Oct 14 20:49:40 BST 2007

you might try to contact Dr. Bryan Bledsoe, and ED physician in TX.  Mostly talks on the circuit now and writes.  Very involved in pre-hospital education.  He has some interesting data on air-med...and he is most likely biased against it...but, he's level headed and will give you both sides clearly.

RD

> From: KMATTOX at aol.com> Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 13:09:27 -0400> To: trauma-list at trauma.org> Subject: Re: Survival advantages of aeromedical transport> > Perhaps you are asking the wrong question. If you ask the question one > way, you will acquire nothing but enemies, as I well know. If you actually > approach the development of a helicopter service as a business center you > will have lots of support. Hospitals put the budget for the helicopter > services under some "losing" cost center in the hospital, but know that it brings > in lots of paying patients and publicity. Thus their support. I do not > know of anyone that has ever shown a survival advantage or a decrease in > complications, or an increase in organ recovery following use of helicopter use > compared to ground transport to a trauma center. Benefit has been shown > when the helicopter is used for high rise, off shore and wilderness rescue, > and as was used in New Orleans during Katrina for rescue. That was not > aeromedical use. > > I would love to debate this subject sometime on a national forum and be able > to bring into the debate the cost comparisons, the crash data, the pain and > suffering, and the "out of control" aspects of some of the helicopter crews. > From a strictly cost, survival, complications, and organ procurement > standpoint, I do not believe anyone can support or justify urban or suburban air > ambulance use. I recently was a guest speaker in a state where I flew into > an airport at one corner side of the state. I rode in a private car to the > hospital where the conference took place. It took about 37 minutes from > airport to hospital. The hospital was in the center of the state. I was then > presented many cases (with relatively minor injuries that could have been > managed at a Level II or Level III trauma center, or even a non trauma center), > but were transported by helicopter to the central university Level I trauma > center. The shortest time from time to decide to fly the patient until > arrival was 4.5 hours and the longest was something over 19 hours. Something > does not compute here. > > Good luck in your survey and in your research. I do hope you are able to > acquire some meaningful data. > > k> > > > ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com> --> trauma-list : TRAUMA.ORG> To change your settings or unsubscribe visit:> http://www.trauma.org/index.php?/community/
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Survival advantages of aeromedical transport