• 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.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.108-114
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• 2015

Purpose: To improve outcome of severe trauma patient, the shortening of transport time is needed. Although helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) is still a subject of debate, it must also be considered for trauma system. The aim of this study is to assess whether transport method (HEMS versus ground EMS) is associated with outcome among inter-hospital transport. Methods: All trauma patients transported to regional emergency center by either HEMS or ground EMS from September 2011 to September 2014. We have classified patients according to two groups by transport method. Age younger than 15 years and self-discharged patients were excluded. Results: A total of 427 patients were available for analysis during this period. 60 patients were transported by HEMS and 367 patients were transported by ground EMS. HEMS group had higher mortality than ground EMS group (23.3% vs 3.5%; p<0.001), and included more patients with excess mortality ratio adjusted injury severity score (EMR-ISS) above 25 (91.7% vs 48.8%; p<0.001). In the multivariable regression analysis, HEMS was not associated with improved outcome compared with ground EMS, but only EMR-ISS was associated with a mortality of patients (odds ratio, 1.06; 95% confidence interval, 1.04-1.09). Conclusion: In this study, helicopter emergency medical services transport was not associated with a decreased of mortality among the trauma patients who inter-hospital transported to the regional emergency center.

• 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 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.