Intriguing isn't the word I would have have used.... maybe disturbing?
It's no secret that EMS transports patients via helicopter that likely don't need to be. Heck, it was even referenced in
. But limiting the number of helicopter transports is a double edged sword: on one side, you are limiting the amount of medevac transports that aren't needed, however medevac operations are big businesses, and the owners and operators of the services like those huge incomes they make from every trip.
I do think that using the AMPT score to determine if a helicopter is needed would be a huge shift in the thinking about whether a helicopter is needed or not (and I'm not say that would be a bad thing). I know of places that will launch on every pin, simply because of their distance to a trauma center (the old thinking of anything beyond 30 min from a trauma center gets a bird is still alive and well, esp among LEO and some FDs), but even the study says "Further, the AMPT score does not account for local geography and distance to the trauma center."
I do think this could be beneficial to decrease the HEMS usage, esp since you are limiting the requests to anatomical criteria based on the patient condition.
But while there might be support from the HEMS community (particularly the line staff), I can see some administrators seeing revenues decline as a results, some ground based field providers not be open to changing their mindset on HEMS use, and some other habits from other agencies being hard to break.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
