{"id":21115,"date":"2024-06-14T13:15:31","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T13:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tuat.org\/?p=21115"},"modified":"2024-10-07T09:50:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T09:50:33","slug":"air-emergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tuat.org\/en\/air-emergency\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Ambulance and Safe Patient Transfer in Hospitals: The Importance of Heliport Systems"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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In newly built hospitals, emphasis is placed on patient transfers using air transport vehicles. This is observed due to their proximity to air ambulance planes and the presence of helipads within hospital premises. In hospitals equipped with helipads, emergency services are naturally the first to come to mind for transferring patients from these pads to any unit within the hospital. In this article, we will discuss patient transfers from hospital helipads (heliports) and safe transport procedures in new emergency service models.<\/p>

Natural disasters, wars, population increases, overcrowding in hospitals, insufficient non-emergency health services, pandemics, and ICU bed shortages have increased the demand for emergency medicine worldwide. Therefore, the importance of accommodating air ambulances in the field and within hospitals for patient transfers has grown.<\/p>

The first documented use of air transport vehicles for patient transfer dates back to 1870, initially for military purposes. In our country, aircraft ambulances were also initially used for military rescue purposes. For example, a patient with a lower extremity gunshot wound had their expected travel time reduced from 3 days by road to 45 minutes. The increasing need for air transport vehicle transfers has led to the issuance of directives and inclusion in new regulations. According to these regulations, the transport of all types of traumatic or non-traumatic emergency patients, critical patients, neonates in incubators, emergency transport of drugs, samples, blood derivatives, and organ transport for transplantation purposes can be conducted.<\/p>

In patients transported by air ambulance, medical conditions may include: multi-trauma patients, acute coronary syndrome, events requiring fibrinolytic treatment, respiratory tract, inhalation, or chemical burns, drowning incidents, fractures likely to progress to shock, open wounds in the chest, abdomen, head, neck, or groin, altered consciousness, unstable vitals and respiration, low Glasgow Coma Scale and trauma scores, and patients likely to experience limb loss. Studies in the literature examining transfers by air ambulance show that more than half of the transfers are for trauma patients. Studies in our country have demonstrated the superiority of physician-attended air ambulances in the transfer of trauma patients.<\/p>

Areas designated for helicopter landings in healthcare facilities are called heliports. The greatest danger during helicopter landings is injury to healthcare workers from rotor blades and tail rotors. Particularly in conditions of high wind speed, reducing rotor speed and lowering blades exacerbates this danger. These risks intensify with increased noise levels. Debris such as dust, sand, snow, and similar foreign materials can become airborne during engine operation after patient delivery, potentially causing injuries to both the team and the patient. All personnel interacting with helicopter ambulances must receive training on correct patient transfer techniques and heliport safety. Personnel in heliport areas should wear bright heliport vests for high visibility to approaching helicopters. Except for personnel working in heliport areas, no other staff should be present, and curious employees should not be granted entry to the runway area. Due to the risk of tail rotor injury in most helicopter types, no one should ever approach the aircraft from behind.<\/p>

For patients arriving at new hospital models via air transport vehicles, heliport healthcare teams should be established. This unit should consist of at least 6 people: 1 physician, 1 nurse, 1 security personnel, 2 transport personnel, and 1 technical staff member. The initial evaluation of the patient transferred by helicopter in the hospital is planned to ensure the continuation of vital functions according to emergency service transfer to the principles of history, rapid physical examination and ATLS ACLS. This team, after making the case report, needs to move quickly according to the prepared route with the equipment in the check-list in order to ensure the vital functions of the patient. In modern hospitals with multiple runways, 112, information about the patient according to the property characteristics of the child, intensive care unit, neurosurgery, interventional radiology, emergency services according to the operating team of the place of injury. The patient should be informed verbally about the flight crew. It must be short. With the patient, the safety control point is passed. After safe security, anamnesis, rapid physical examination, vital processes will be applied for the first treatment in accordance with the emergency guidance.<\/p>

Patient information transferred to the healthcare team to play a role in the long-term treatment of the hospital is made. Treatment and information from the helicopter team are given. All operations are completed to determine the equipment and needs for new missions.<\/p>

Mehmet Necmeddin SUTA\u015eIR, MD<\/p>

Emergency Medicine Clinic, \u015ei\u015fli Hamidiye Etfal Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, TURKEY<\/p>

drmehmetns@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n

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    In newly built hospitals, emphasis is placed on patient transfers using air transport vehicles. This is observed due to their proximity to air ambulance planes and the presence of helipads within hospital premises. In hospitals equipped with helipads, emergency services are naturally the first to come to mind for transferring patients from these pads to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuat.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuat.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuat.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuat.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuat.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuat.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuat.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuat.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuat.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuat.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}