Teletransmission as a useful method in the conduct of Medical Rescue Teams

Abstract

Introduction: Emergency medical services, during their activities, must diagnose conditions directly

threatening the patient’s life and health, implement appropriate procedures, secure the patient, and transport them to a place where they can be given more appropriate assistance in the shortest possible time. Performing teletransmission significantly reduces the time to provide the patient with proper, life-saving assistance. In this study the authors undertook an analysis of teletransmissions carried out by the teams of EMS. These data are to be used to assess the MRT activities depending on the hospital to which the patient was transferred.

Material and methods: The information was obtained based on the analysis of MRT exit cards working in the area of the Sokołowski powiat and the city of Sokołów Podlaski. The author analysed 3804 travel cards of the MRT 04-51, 04-52, 04-54 teams in Sokołów Podlaski and Kosów Lacki in 2018, distinguished 147 cards during which the teams performed teletransmission to the Haemodynamics Centre in Siedlce. Then the exit cards were analysed according to the patient’s age, and then the time elapsed from departure to arrival at the place of call and from arrival to the moment of transferring the patient to the hospital, broken down by urgency code of departure: code 1 (C1) and code 2 (C2). P < 0.05 was adopted as the significance level.

Results: The average age of teletransmitted patients was 69.8 ± 17 years, and the average age without teletransmission was 65.8 ± 23.6 years (p = 0.042). The time elapsed from reaching the patient to the time of transfer in the hospital for patients who were teletransmitted was 49.1 ± 16.1 minutes, and for patients who were not it was 39 ± 22.2 minutes (p < 0.001). The average time to reach the patient in the code 1 was 10.9 ± 7.4 minutes, and in the code 2 it was 14.5 ± 17.9 min (p < 0.001). It was shown that the patient’s age did not affect the time of departure and arrival at the place of call (r = 0.075), nor the time of transferring the patient to the hospital (r = 0.027).

Conclusions: 1. The results obtained show the need to perform the teletransmission procedure as soon as possible and to apply appropriate treatment by MRT. This can significantly reduce the time to balloon a clogged vessel or attach a stent.

2. Performing teletransmission extends the time of patient transfer in hospital by nearly 10 minutes

3. Considering the place of patient transfer in ER or ED, both the age of the patients, times from the MRT departure to arrival at the call site, and the time from arrival at the place of call to transfer in hospital turned out to be statistically significant.