• Journal of the Korean Institute of Rural Architecture
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.29-36
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to have detailed data of the distribution, locations, and the amount of people in the waiting line of the nursing home. Also, we studied the accessibility to the facilities by using Web GIS to analyze the transit time it takes from the nursing home to health center and hospitals. We can provide the basic data that could contribute when future plans for the nursing homes' locations, health and medical policy are made. The results are as follows. 1. The nursing homes are stiffly concentrated in regions of Seoul and Gyeongi-do where large number of the elderly covered by long-term care insurance and the waiting line was very long for the elderlies to enter the nursing homes. In these cities of Ulsan and Jeju where number of the elderly covered by long-term care insurance is relatively small, there were less facilities. 2. The nursing homes located in urban areas had higher occupancy rate and higher number of people in the waiting line. 3. The average time taken by driving from the nursing homes and health center was 10 minutes and there was not a noticeable difference between the cities. Driving from the nursing homes to hospitals in rural areas took 22 minutes which is 2.5 times of the time taken for urban areas. Daegu-si and Incheon-si had relatively short distance from the nursing homes and the hospitals while Jeju-do had the furthest. For rural areas, it is needed for health center to be equipped with a wider medical coverage, have closely connected with hospitals to minimize the differences they have from ones in rural areas. It is also needed to have ambulances equipped for tele-medical examination and treatment system.

• Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.218-232
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• 2013

Purpose: This study was aimed to describe Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) and analyze the flight nurses' activities in HEMS. Methods: Data were collected retrospectively from the air transportation reports that contained data of 168 patients transported by aircraft to G University medical center in Incheon since June, 2012 to March, 2013. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and Mann-Whitney U test. Results: Average distance of flights was 44.0 km, duration of field treatment took 13.6 minutes, and duration of a flight from scene to hospital was 14.5 minutes. Nursing activities were categorized into 12 direct nursing activities and 5 nursing management activities, and a total number of 7806 nursing activities were occurred in HEMS. The most frequently performed nursing activity was measurement and monitoring (27.9%) followed by medication (11.5%) and respiratory management (8.7%). The most frequent nursing management were information management (11.0%). Nursing activities performed were significantly different depending on the patient's level of consciousness, cause of illness, crew configuration, and type of transportation. Conclusion: This study described HEMS nursing activities performed by flight nurses. Difference in nursing activities according to patient characteristics, crew configuration and type of transportation requires flight nurses to be prepared through educational programs to improve nursing activities and nursing management during air transportation.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.147-158
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• 2021

Purpose: This study was conducted as a direct investigation of the data in the dispatch logbooks and status of patient transportation provided by private emergency transport companies in Busan. Methods: This study was conducted using SPSS 23.0 version for a total of 1,000 processed records of private emergency ambulance services in Busan from September 23, 2017 to November 5, 2019. Results: First, 100% of the emergency patient transfers by private emergency ambulances were carried out between medical institutions; 76.4% of all transfer patients had emergency conditions, and 86.0% had serious diseases. Second, 59.3% of the emergency patients were located at distances less than 10 km and 43.2%, at more than 10 km from the medical institutions. Third, 63.5% of the passengers were accompanied by first-class emergency rescuers according to the severity of the condition. Fourth, 92.7% of the reasons for the selection of medical institutions were transferred to places where professional care was available, accounting for most of the reasons for the selection. Finally, the medical institutions were selected according to the severity of the patient's condition; 76.5% patients were transported to institutions with a large number of doctors, and 42.9% of those were transported to specialized care institutions. Conclusion: This study collected data from 1,000 dispatch records of private emergency transport companies in Busan; these records reflect the government's policies to improve the emergency patient transfer system. The current status of emergency patient transfer offered by private transport companies was analyzed. All of the emergency patient transfers were carried out between medical institutions, and 76% of the transferred patients had emergency conditions.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.91-111
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• 2023

Purpose: This study aims to compare 119 emergency medical services (EMS) in South Korea and Japan to provide essential data for EMS improvement in South Korea. Methods: Recent data and regulations on firefighting and EMS in South Korea and Japan were analyzed and compared. Results: South Korea follows a centralized approach to EMS, whereas Japan operates with autonomous bodies that establish their own criteria. Japan considers more regional variables than South Korea. In South Korea, there are shortages in fire station deployment among the 119 emergency medical resources in certain regions, leading to significant regional disparities. South Korea has a larger population served by its 119 emergency medical resources with a higher workload and dispatch numbers than Japan. The percentage of non-transported patients among the total number of dispatches was higher in South Korea. Conclusion: Increasing the number of medical professionals and ambulances per population to the level of Japan to reflect local conditions and include various underlying variables such as daytime population, aging, and emergency dispatch conditions in the deployment of 119 emergency resources, and to reduce the deployment gap between regions, will contribute to improving the performance of the South Korea EMS system.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.106-113
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• 2024

Purpose: Helicopter transport with medical teams has been proven to be effective, with improvements in patient survival rates. This study compared and analyzed the clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes of trauma patients transported by doctor helicopters according to whether patients were transferred after a clinical evaluation or without a clinical evaluation. Methods: This study retrospectively reviewed data from the Korean Trauma Data Bank of trauma patients who arrived at a regional trauma center through doctor helicopters from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2022. The patients were divided into two groups: doctor helicopter transport before evaluation (DHTBE) and doctor helicopter transport after evaluation (DHTAE). These groups were compared. Results: The study population included 351 cases. At the time of arrival at the trauma center, the systolic blood pressure was significantly lower in the DHTAE group than in the DHTBE group (P=0.018). The Injury Severity Score was significantly higher in the DHTAE group (P<0.001), and the accident to trauma center arrival time was significantly shorter in the DHTBE group (P<0.001). Mortality did not show a statistically significant between-group difference (P=0.094). Surgical cases in the DHTAE group had a longer time from the accident scene to trauma center arrival (P=0.002). The time from the accident to the operation room or from the accident to angioembolization showed no statistically significant differences. Conclusions: DHTAE was associated with significantly longer transport times to the trauma center, as well as nonstatistically significant trends for delays in receiving surgery and procedures, as well as higher mortality. If severe trauma is suspected, air transport to a trauma center should be requested immediately after a simple screening test (e.g., mechanism of injury, Glasgow Coma Scale, or Focused Assessment with Sonography in Trauma), which may help reduce the time to definitive treatment.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.36 no.11B
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• pp.1346-1356
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• 2011

Transportation has been playing important role in our society by providing for people, freight, and information. However, it cuts its own throat by causing car accidents, traffic congestion, and air pollution. The main cause of these problems is a noticeable growth in the number of vehicles. The easiest way to mitigate these problems is to build new road infrastructures unless resources such as time, money, and space are limited. Therefore, there is a need to manage the existing road infrastructures effectively and safely. In this paper, we propose a road reservation scheme that provides fast and safe response for emergency vehicles using ubiquitous sensor network. Our idea is to allow emergency vehicle to reserve a road on a freeway for arriving to the scene of the accident quickly and safely. We evaluate the performance by three reservation method (No, Hop, and Full) to show that emergency vehicles such as ambulances, fire trucks, or police cars can rapidly and safely reach their destination. Simulation results show that the average speed of road reservation is about 1.09 ~ 1.20 times faster than that of non-reservation at various flow rates. However, road reservation should consider the speed of the emergency vehicle and the road density of the emergency vehicle processing direction, as a result of Hop Reservation and Full Reservation performance comparison analysis. We confirm that road reservation can guarantee safe driving of emergency vehicles without reducing their speed and help to mitigate traffic congestion.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.135-141
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• 2020

The first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was reported in Korea in 2015, after a Korean man from Bahrain tested positive for the infection. After first eruption, there were numbers of secondary infectees and whole country were frightened. At the time, isolated ambulances were available but few, and there was no specific way to prevent contamination during transfer. Therefore, Seoul National University Hospital and the University of Seoul developed isolation units and air filters. Four years after the MERS outbreak, this study measured the differential pressure inside and outside the small isolation units based on the differential pressure and air flow derived from simulation and testing, and proposed minimum values for virus leakage and internal sealing. A performance evaluation and testing method for the transfer equipment is proposed. The critical function of the small isolated transport equipment was defined and selected as an evaluation item; performance evaluation was carried out by simulating a real-world case. The results provide the proper pressure configuration of positive and negative pressure inside the segregation feeder; the clear criteria for the HEPA filter; and the performance criteria for the segregation feeder and air purifier.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.27-40
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• 2007

Even now, 119 rescue services have dissatisfactory aspects in operation, system and equipments as discussed above, It is the most urgent subject to systemize rescue services so that they can be suitable for our status, for we will make 21C welfare state come true before long. So, this author suggest that the followings have to be raised to activate 119 rescue service. 1) Bring up experts and offer high-quality rescue service 2) Prepare more up-to-date equipments 3) Operate transfer joint organizations 4) Promote the ability to meet with a press at the time of rescue service activities 5) Adjust regulations related to rescue services 6) Make up for a countermeasure to traffic accidents of ambulances 7) Adjust regulations making it mandatory to establish heliport at the target on hospitals more than a defined scale 8) Install more rescue service teams 9) Educate and train officials belonging to briefing rooms, where the officials with long experiences are arranged 10) Minimize the time for rescue team to reach fields 11) Establish legal protection system for rescue the team Nowadays, our country operates the department of fire fighting and rescue services without great difficulty, even though the circumstances are bad - insufficient members and the inferior circumstances. All of the fire fighting officials are given heavy duties in bad circumstances, and so are the team of rescue service. The rescue service team, taking charge of some emergency medical system, do a fire fighting inspection as a non-duty service, though they are scanty of sleep due to prevention and protection services of the fire fighting service team. But, they can not engage in rescue services completely and have to deal with miscellaneous duties. So they can not offer professional emergency medical services. But now, almost every fire fighting organization, belonging to National Emergency Management Agency, are separating rescue services, which shows a lot of good results. People recognize rescue services to get better and better gradually and the demands for this rescue services increase. So, this is the best time when rescue service teams should offer qualitative services rather than quantitative services. The people will recognize this rescue service team to be an organization sacrificing and serving for them. However well institutes and operation systems should be established, the rescue service team can not come true their aim without strong wills that they will serve and sacrifice themselves for people from their hearts. In addition, it is essential for the officials in charge of policies about emergency medical services to have a concernment on and practice the policy without failure.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.130-137
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to investigate the circumstances surrounding collisions involving ambulances with an aim to improving the safe operation of emergency services. Collisions are relatively common within paramedic emergency services. We analyzed the time, injury site, and any other specific factors of 908 collisions occurring within four cities. Within our study 29.6% of paramedics have been involved in accidents while responding to an emergency call, with the main cause of the accident being signal violation (35.7%), and is the other party's negligence (22.2%). 92.1% of these accidents occurred while the emergency lights were being operated. XX% of accidents took place in the afternoon, while xx% took place within the hours of xx:xx and xx:xx, during which time there is generally lower levels of traffic, which can cause severe brain and neck damage of 14.4% but the other part is 62.1%. (Ed note; this is not clear at all. 14.4% of collisions resulted in severe head and neck injuries, while 23.5% of collisions resulted in no injury. According to the respondents, defensive driving (xx%), observance of traffic laws (xx%), safe driving habits (xx%)to paramedics were the most critical factors in evading collision. Signal passes were identified as the most common cause of collision (70.1%). Although the majority of collisions occurred while the emergency lights were operational, the damage can cause severe damage at the time of accident occurred.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.44-53
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• 2015

This study is a survey research to improve the fire-fighting ambulance interior design safer and more efficient to identify the type of structure and functional problems 119 ambulance. When the paramedics and four degrees to over 755 people modify the target report and related literature on the future development of an ambulance for patient safety at the 2007 British National Patients Safety Agency (NPSA) and was used as a complementary tool. General characteristics questionnaire was composed of items for your design improvements for ambulance promote safety and efficiency. The data were collected by distributing a questionnaire e-mail or in person. The collected data were processed using the SPSS 20.0 statistical program, the general characteristics as frequency analysis, percentage, ambulance interior design improvement-related items were analyzed using the chi-square verified. As a result, this research elicited that vans converted fire ambulance cars have a problem with the narrow interior space and truck converted fire ambulance cars should be comfortable to drive in ride quality. In addition, we also found that the improvement of paramedics treatment position and the paramedic's personnel safety belt are required. Based on these results, we propose that a number of improvements are needed in the fire-fighting ambulance car.