Health Services Study: An Assessment of Victim Transport to Medical Care During and Following a Mass Casualty Event

Goals:

To assess patients’ transport to acute/medical care facilities following a mass casualty event; and to assess EMS response to injured persons following a mass casualty event.

Who would use the data?

EMS administrators, medical and public health professionals, and other community policy makers and planners who must prepare for future mass casualty events.

Example:

• Budiansky VM, DeJong R, Chesmochakova LA. Gagarin A, Loginov A, Effects of air and ground transport on physiological parameters of critically ill patients.
• Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica 2001. [X 45 Suppl 115:75]

Research Questions:

• How did patients with event-related injuries/conditions arrive at points of medical care delivery?
• Was mode of arrival appropriate for presenting condition?
• How was mode of transport related to patient outcomes?
• Was any medical care (triage care) received at the event site or elsewhere before arriving at the medical care facility? What type of care was rendered? Where was care rendered?
• When were transport services dispatched in relation to the event? How long did it take transport services to reach the injured/ill? What was the time between dispatch and patients’ arrival at points of medical care delivery?
• What barriers existed to reaching the injured?

Methods:

• Target population: All persons with event related physical injuries
• Study design: Cross-sectional medical record abstraction; surveys and interviews with hospital/ED, EMS, fire dept. administrators and attending physicians, charge nurses, and other supervisory caregivers.

Data Sources:

ED records, ambulance services, EMS, American Red Cross, and fire department records.

Sample Variables:

• From hospital ED sheet: Date and time of patient admission and discharge, injury severity, presenting ED diagnosis, prescribed ED treatment, and mode of transport to ED.
• From EMS, ambulance service, or fire department records: Cause of injury, location where injured, method of request for transport (physician referral, self-referral), type of service (EMS, ambulance, fire department, etc.), triage received, nature and extent of pre-hospital care rendered, and dispatch, load and ED arrival times.
• From hospital administrative records or personnel interview: Number of hospital/clinic personnel on duty, hours of operation, address, and site of operation.

Time Frame:

Immediately (<24 hours) up to one-week post-event.

Potential Partners/Collaborators:

State and local health departments and hospitals, local university researchers, especially schools of public health, and CDC, NCIPC staff.

IRB needed:

Depends on how data are used.