Citation

Jung S, Qin X. J. Transp. Saf. Secur. 2022; 14(1): 46-66.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Southeastern Transportation Center, and Beijing Jiaotong University, Publisher Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/19439962.2020.1838680

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Air ambulance has a huge advantage over the ground transport in providing rapid medical access to remote areas, shortening transport time, and improving survival rate. However, one of the hurdles to expanding air service coverage is the limited heliports for landing. This study aims to quantitatively assess the impact of adding school playgrounds as sub-heliports to reduce air medical transport time. To achieve this goal, the existing air medical transport infrastructure and traffic crash injury data were collected and analyzed to establish the relationship between transport time and injury severities. Then, air medical transport time with and without the augmentation of school playgrounds were estimated, respectively. Additionally, air medical service coverage maps were created to show the impact of fatal injury reduction and the estimated transport times. The findings have shown promising results of using school playgrounds to reduce air medical transport time, which is an encouraging sign for converting school playgrounds to potential heliports. Our research provides the quantitative evidence to the policy makers on expanding air medical capacity with existing infrastructure to improve the emergency medical services in South Korea.

Language: en

Keywords

air ambulance; emergency medical services; heliport; policy; school playground; transport time