Abstract
Background: The dispatched number of the fire and disaster management helicopters (FDM Heli) is increasing year by year, however, it is much fewer compared with the Doctor-Heli. This investigation, which evaluated the ability in FDM Heli as the rotorcraft for the utilization of emergency medical service (EMS) and visualized the differences from the Doctor-Heli, was designed to show some ideas for improvement of the FDM Heli system.
Materials and Methods: The Committee of Aircraft Emergency Medical Service in Japanese Association for Acute Medicine questionnaired for fifty-three domestic corps of FDM Heli. The items of question were scored on the basis of the Doctor-Heli system and classified into two categories,“Condition”and“Mobility”.“Condition”is the backgrounds as the rotorcraft for the use of EMS including fixation of hospital, education for safety, criteria for dispatch, boarding paramedic and operation time, and“Mobility”is the preparations to dispatch the physician to the scene swiftly including specialty of doctor boarding, way of dispatch, dispatched area, equipment and type of helicopter. The total point of each FDM Heli corps about“Condition”and“Mobility”was plotted on the two-dimensional graph, respectively.
Results: All of fifty-three FDM Heli corps filled out the questionnaire. The scores of the Doctor-Heli as evaluation basis were 12 points as“Condition”and 15 points as“Mobility”, however, the median of“Condition”and“Mobility”in FDM Heli were 5 (2-13) and 5 (2-11), respectively. Only three corps (Kochi Pref., Fukuoka City and Hyogo Pref. + Kobe City) were evaluated that their helicopters are closely operated to the Doctor-Heli.
Conclusion: This study shows that the FDM Heli still has an obvious difference from the Doctor-Heli in the utilization as EMS helicopter even if that should act as the multipurpose helicopter. Under developing of Doctor-Heli system in the whole nation, it is meaningless argument that“FDM Heli?”or“Doctor-Heli?”which helicopter should take responsibility for EMS. The effective utilization of FDM Heli for an insufficient prehospital resource has to be discussed.
