Are all helicopter dispatches really necessary? a cross-sectional study.

Background: Pre-hospital emergency care is a critical part of the health care system. Helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) is a novel part of the medical services of the health care delivery system. The goal of these medical services is to provide appropriate treatments at the right place and time. The pre-hospital emergency is the first line of providing emergency care to patients and injured. To reduce the death and disability of patients, the optimal performance of various pre-hospital emergency branches, such as HEMS, is needed. Thereby, it is essential to pay attention to the importance of hospital wards and patient transfer. However, the HEMS can impose a high cost on the health care system. Due to a lack of evidence, in this study, we will investigate the reasons and consequences of transferring patients by HEMS in Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Qom.

Methods: This study is a cross-sectional descriptive study. In this study, sampling was done by the census, and all patients were transferred by air ambulance during the year 1400 (March 2021 to 2022) using the emergency department of Qom province, and the study of patient health records was performed.

Results: A significant percentage of patients (46.8%) were discharged from the emergency department in the first 6 hours. Most of the patients (79%) did not need surgery. 41.1% of the patients were traumatic patients with no pathological findings in their imaging.

Conclusions: Many cases did not necessarily need HEMS to transfer. It is recommended to choose the candidates more carefully for air ambulance transfer to reduce unnecessary costs.