NEEDED : ONE GOOD TIMING OFFICER AT THE LZ

When you have a helicopter ambulance (or multiple helicopter ambulances) responding to a incident, it can get quite confusing trying to figure out if the helos should go to the scene, to the local hospital, or to an in-between point. And if there are multiple patients, with multiple different extrication times, and multiple nearby hospitals, and multiple landing zones (LZs) - obviously this can become a real challenge to figure out the best course of action

I would like to suggest that every medevac incident should have a "timing officer". This person would be responsible for computing the best course of action for each patient. This would be a very important position with a large impact on the overall outcome for the patients.

Basically, a timeline would be developed for each patient. The basic idea is to minimize the sum of the "extrication time", the "ground transport time", and the "aerial evac to the trauma center time". Factors that will affect these times will be - the location of the LZ relative to the incident; the location of the nearest hospital to the incident; the travel speeds attainable over the highways; the "straightness" of the roadways; road conditions; the number and ETA of the responding helos and ground ambos; the patients conditions; the capability of the local hospital or clinic; the availability of ALS at the scene; and the capability of the trauma center. This can be very tough to figure out during the pressures of an emergency incident.

To simplify things, I would like to suggest that this formula be used - "time to extrication" + "time to LZ" + "time to trauma" center = a minimum. A simple check list or form can be developed to compute this equation for each patient. This equation will account for some of the variables at the scene, but it does leave out some important considerations. Any comments?

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