• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• 제24권2호
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• pp.118-124
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• 2011

Purpose: The incidence of multiple trauma is increasing nowadays and is the leading cause of death among young adults. Initial treatment is well known to be crucial in multiple trauma victims. However, many indiscriminate transfers occur due to the lack of a well-organized trauma system in Korea. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the current serious state in which major trauma patients are transferred to the Emergency Medical Center of a university hospital from another medical center. Methods: From November 2009 to October 2010, we performed a retrospective study to analyze the characteristics of patients who visited the Ajou University Medical Center located in Gyeonggi-do. We evaluated the ISS (injury severity score), and a score over 15 point was identified as major trauma. The major trauma patients were separated into two groups according to the visit route, and the characteristics of each group were analyzed. Results: Among the 88,862 patients who visited to the Emergency Medical Center, trauma patients accounted for 19,950, and 343 of them were evaluated as major trauma patients. Among the 343 patients, 170 patients had been transferred from other medical centers. The proportion of males to females was 3.3:1, and the mean ISS was 22.7. The leading cause of trauma was motor vehicle accidents. Of the total 170 patients, 77.6% were admitted to the Intensive care unit and 36.3% underwent surgery. The 170 patients that had been transferred to our medical center, 78.8% were transferred from Gyeonggi-do, 15.3% were transferred from other regions, and 5.9% were miscellaneous. Conclusion: Almost half of the major trauma victims treat at our medical center had been transferred from other medical centers. Establishing a traumatic system, supported by well-organized trauma centers and emergency medical services, that can reduce inappropriate transfers among medical facilities is essential.

• Journal of Dental Anesthesia and Pain Medicine
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• 제19권1호
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• pp.21-27
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• 2019

Background: Emergencies in dentistry can be classified as medical and dental. Medical emergencies occur mainly during dental treatment in patients with a systemic disease. Dental emergency departments are largely divided into dental emergency rooms located in dental college hospitals and medical emergency rooms located in medical institutions. This study aimed to analyze the characteristics of and provide help to dental emergency patients in a dental hospital. Methods: Overall, 1806 patients admitted to a dental emergency room at Yonsei University Dental Hospital for 1 year were included. The data collection period was from October 1, 2014 to September 30, 2015. An investigator reviewed medical records from the electronic medical record (EMR) system and radiographs. Results: The patients were 1,070 men and 736 women. The sex ratio was 1.45:1. The commonest age group was of 0-9 years, including 451 (25.0%) patients, followed by 20-29 years, including 353 (19.5%) patients, and 30-39 years, including 277 (15.3%) patients. Of the 108 patients transferred to the Severance emergency department, 81 had trauma, 19 were in pain, 4 were bleeding, and 4 had other complaints. Among chief complaints, 1,079 patients (60.3%) had trauma, 564 (31.5%) had pain, and 75 (4.2%) had bleeding. Twenty-three cases (1.3%) were caused by temporomandibular disorder (TMD). Conclusion: Dentists should be able to adequately assess patients in a dental emergency room and treat trauma, pain, and bleeding.

• ETRI Journal
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• 제41권4호
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• pp.515-527
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• 2019

This paper discusses the design, implementation, and potential use of an ontology-based mobile pediatric consultation and monitoring system, which is a smart healthcare expert system for pediatric patients. The proposed system provides remote consultation and monitoring of pediatric patients during their illness at places distant from medical service areas. The system not only shares instant medical data with a pediatrician but also examines the data as a smart medical assistant to detect any emergency situation. In addition, it uses an inference engine to infer instant suggestions for performing certain initial medical treatment steps when necessary. The applied methodologies and main technical contributions have three aspects: (a) pediatric consultation and monitoring ontology, (b) semantic Web rule knowledge base, and (c) inference engine. Two case studies with real pediatric patients are provided and discussed. The reported results of the applied case studies are promising, and they demonstrate the applicability, effectiveness, and efficiency of the proposed approach.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• 제19권2호
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• pp.92-98
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• 2002

Emergency medicine(EM) is the specialty of evaluating, stabilizing and initiating treatment for patients with life or limb-threatening illnesses or injuries. Techniques unique to the specialty of EM are the triage systems, quick stabilization methods, and emergency surgery procedures. The field of EM encompasses areas such as emergency department management, disaster planning and management, the management of emergency medical service(EMS) systems, research into such areas as brain and heart resuscitation, trauma and disaster management, survival medicine, and environmental emergencies(cold and heat injuries, poisioning, decompression sickness and barotrauma). Today, in addition to providing emergency care, the emergency specialists have moral and legal obligations to assess and report probable cases of child and spouse abuse, sexual assault, and alcohol and drug abuse. Future, the EM should provide surveillance, identification, intervention, and evaluation of injury and disease, therefore EM will remain as a key component of evolving community health care system.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• 제24권1호
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• pp.37-44
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• 2011

Purpose: Recently, social interest in an organized trauma system for the treatment of patients has been increasing in government and academia and the establishment of trauma center is being considered across the country. However, establishing such a system has not been easy in Korea, because enormous experiences and resources are necessary. The objectives of this study were (1) to estimate a trauma patient's demands during the course of treatment and (2) to provide appropriate direction for trauma centers to be established in Korea. Methods: The records of 207 patients who were admitted to the Department of Trauma Surgery in Ajou University Medical Center due to trauma were retrospectively reviewed for a 1 year period from March 2010 to February 2011. Patients were reviewed for general characteristics, number of hospital days, numbers and kinds of surgeries, numbers and kinds of consultations, ISS (Injury Severity Score) and number of patients with ISS more than 15. Results: All 207 patients were enrolled. The average number of hospital days was 36.7 days. The ICU stay was 15.9 days, and the general ward stay was 20.8 days. Admitted patients occupied 9.02 beds in ICU and 11.80 beds in the general ward per day. The average number of surgeries per patient was 1.4, and surgery at the Department of Trauma Surgery was most common. Number of consultations per patient was 14.23, and consultations with orthopedic surgeons were most common. The average ISS was 18.6. The number of patients with ISS more than 15 was 141 (61.8%) and the average number of patients treated per trauma surgeon as a major trauma patient was 94.3. The number of mortalities was 20, and the mortality rate was 9.7%. Conclusion: To reduce mortality and to provide proper treatment of patients with major trauma, hospitals need some number of beds, especially in the ICU, to treat patients and to prepare them for emergent surgery. An appropriate number of trauma surgeons and various specialists for consultation are also needed.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.11-25
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• 1980

The increasing utilization of radioactive isotopes in industry, medicine and research has raised the question, 'How should hospitals deal with radiation injuries when they occur?' A system for initial management of radiation injuries has been developed by Radiation Management Corporation. Radiation injuries are classified and a treatment plan outlined for each at the emergency and short term medical care phase. This system includes clinical prognosis as well as a detailed plan for quick set up or a Radiation Emergency Area in any hospital. Procedures for patient admission, preparation of the facility, general decontamination, sample taking, and wound decontamination are included.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• 제55권3호
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• pp.173-177
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• 2014

Neurocysticercosis is the commonest parasitic disease of the human central nervous system. The incidence of intra ventricular form of neurocysticercosis (NCC) is less common accounting 10-20% that of total central nerve system cysticercosis. Intra ventricular NCC is complicated due, to its high incidence of acute hydrocephalus caused by ball valve mechanism. The only reliable tool for diagnosis of NCC is by neuroimaging with CT or MRI. MRI preferred over CT because of its high specificity and sensitivity. In emergency situations like acute hydrocephalus one can proceed with emergency endoscopic surgery. Through the endoscopic view, intra ventricular NCC (IVNCC) has distinguished morphological features like the full moon sign. This feature not only helps in identification of IVNCC, but also guides in further endoscopic treatment strategy. Authors report two cases of 3rd ventricular NCC with acute hydrocephalus managed with emergency endoscopy. Authors have discussed the clinical features, intra operative endoscopic findings and role of endoscopy in emergency surgery for NCC with acute hydrocephalus.

• 대한의사협회지
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• 제61권12호
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• pp.710-714
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• 2018

A law revised in May 2012 provided support to regional and emergency centers for reducing the risk of preventable deaths. In particular, regional trauma centers have been established throughout the nation, with the goal of ensuring that any trauma patient can reach a trauma center within an hour. As a multidisciplinary approach is particularly important in treating severe trauma patients, activation teams are currently organized at each center to perform multiple simultaneous treatments. Under the present system, only 7 departments can participate in these trauma teams; emergency medicine, cardiothoracic surgery, general surgery, orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, radiology, and anesthesiology. Plastic surgeons also play an essential role in treating trauma patients, and in fact currently treat many such cases. Especially in reconstruction procedures in patients with head and neck trauma and wide tissue defects, plastic surgeons possess unique expertise. However, since plastic surgeons are excluded from the trauma response teams due to institutional limitations, we describe the role and necessity of plastic surgery for trauma and emergency patients, and urge that the system be improved.

• 대한임상독성학회지
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.164-171
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• 2009

Purpose: The number of patients who take warfarin is growing and so is the number of complications. Hemorrhage is the major complication, but the clinical characteristics and outcomes have not been determined for Korean patients. Therefore, we tried to evaluate the characteristics of the patients with hemorrhagic complications after taking warfarin as anticoagulation therapy. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of the patients who visited the emergency room with bleeding complications after taking warfarin anticoagulation at the out-patient clinic for 1 year from 1 st January 2008. We compared between two groups (the major hemorrhage group vs. the minor hemorrhage group) according to the clinical criteria, the unstable vital signs that required blood transfusion, transfusion more than 2 units of blood, the need for further laboratory follow-up, the need for interventional treatment and the development of critical complications or death due to bleeding. Results: There were 150 patients who met the criteria and had acute hemorrhagic complications (the major group: 90 patients and the minor group: 60 patients). In the major hemorrhage group, the frequent sites of bleeding were the gastro-intestinal system (40 patients), lung (14 patients) and intracranium (7 patients). At the emergency room, the major group showed a higher initial INR of the activated prothrombin time than did the minor group (p=0.02). The bleeding sites of the fatal cases were the gastro-intestinal system (3 patients), lung (3 patients) and intracranium (3 patients), but the percentage of fatality was the highest for intracranium bleeding. Conclusion: In the major hemorrhage group, gastrointestinal bleeding was the most frequent complication and fatality was the highest for intracranium bleeding. An initially higher INR showed a greater risk of major bleeding, but not more fatalities.

• 산업경영시스템학회지
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• 제42권2호
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• pp.9-17
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• 2019

In order to deal with high uncertainty and variability in emergency medical centers, many researchers have developed various models for their operational planning and scheduling. However, most of the models just provide static plans without any risk measures as their results, and thus the users often lose the opportunity to analyze how much risk the patients have, whether the plan is still implementable or how the plan should be changed when an unexpected event happens. In this study, we construct a simulation model combined with a risk-based planning and scheduling module designed by Simio LLC. In addition to static schedules, it provides possibility of treatment delay for each patient as a risk measure, and updates the schedule to avoid the risk when it is needed. By using the simulation model, the users can experiment various scenarios in operations quickly, and also can make a decision not based on their past experience or intuition but based on scientific estimation of risks even in urgent situations. An example of such an operational decision making process is demonstrated for a real mid-size emergency medical center located in Seoul, Republic of Korea. The model is designed for temporal short-term planning especially, but it can be expanded for long-term planning also with some appropriate adjustments.