2019 Volume 24 Issue 2 Pages 109-115
Doctor helicopters (D‒Helis) have contributed to improvements in the outcomes of emergency patients, not only due to rapid transport to designated institutions, but also due to the treatment provided by crew doctors and nurses. To evaluate the usefulness of D‒Helis in neurosurgical emergencies, we investigated the characteristics of neurosurgical emergency patients who were transferred by D‒Helis to our hospital and the differences in outcomes between patients transported via D‒Helis and those transported via ground emergency medical services (EMSs). We studied patients with traumatic brain injury, cerebrovascular disease, and consciousness disturbance as neurosurgical emergency patients transferred by D‒Helis between July 2015 and September 2017. We investigated the types of diseases, transfer times, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scores, treatments by doctors and nurses of D‒Helis, hospital stays, and modified Rankin Scale (mRS) scores at discharge. We also compared the outcomes of patients transported via D‒Helis with those of patients transported via ground EMSs using statistical analysis. Thirty‒nine (35%) neurosurgical emergency patients of a total of 113 patients were transferred to our hospital by D‒Helis during this period. No differences between the traumatic brain injury, cerebrovascular disease, and unconsciousness groups were found in transfer times and GCS scores. Patients with traumatic brain injury underwent out‒of‒hospital intubation most frequently among the 3 groups, and patients from all the groups were administered medications. No significant statistical differences between D‒Heli transport and ground EMSs were found on patient hospital stays and mRS scores at discharge. However, two cases demonstrated the usefulness of D‒Helis. In these cases, rapid transport of the patient to an adequate hospital and reduction in in‒hospital procedure times after completing a primary survey on the D‒Heli transport may have contributed to favorable outcomes. We are planning another approach to evaluate the usefulness of D‒Helis in the future.
