Epidemiology of Emergency Medical Services-Assessed Mass Casualty Incidents according to Causes

Abstract

To effectively mitigate and reduce the burden of mass casualty incidents (MCIs), preparedness measures should be based on MCIs’ epidemiological characteristics. This study aimed to describe the epidemiological characteristics and outcomes of emergency medical services (EMS)-assessed MCIs from multiple areas according to cause. Therefore, we extracted the records of all MCIs that involved ≥ 6 patients from an EMS database. All patients involved in EMS-assessed MCIs from six areas were eligible for this study, and their prehospital and hospital records were reviewed for a 1-year period. The EMS-assessed MCIs were categorized as being caused by fire accidents (FAs), road traffic accidents (RTAs), chemical and biological agents (CBs), and other mechanical causes (MECHs). A total of 362 EMS-assessed MCIs were identified, with a crude incidence rate of 0.6–5.0/100,000 population. Among these MCIs, 322 were caused by RTAs. The MCIs involved 2,578 patients, and 54.3% of these patients were women. We observed that the most common mechanism of injury varied according to MCI cause, and that a higher number of patients per incident was associated with a longer prehospital time. The highest hospital admission rate was observed for CBs (16 patients, 55.2%), and most patients in RTAs and MECHs experienced non-severe injuries. The total number of deaths was 32 (1.2%). An EMS-assessed MCI database was established using the EMS database and medical records review. Our findings indicate that RTA MCIs create a burden on EMS and emergency department resources, although CB MCIs create a burden on hospitals’ resources.

Epidemiologic Characteristics of Injured School-age Patients Transported via Emergency Medical Services in Korea

“…Therefore, there was no recall bias, which is a concern when using surveys of injury experiences. Recently, the EMS database has been used for injury surveillance, including monitoring for injuries such as poisoning and drug overdose, 13 mass casualty incidents, 14 and severe trauma 15 and for risk analysis such as regional variations or injury patterns in young adults engaged in alcohol use. 16 This study provides a novel use for the EMS database for the surveillance of injuries occurring in a specific location, such as school.…”

TRIAGE : Management of the trauma patient

“…The global epidemiologic characteristics, studying the mechanism of injury due to an MCI with mortality as an outcome, are related to road traffic accidents [99,100]. Brain injuries and fractures are also common in other incident types, for example, earthquakes [101].…”

Prehospital Response Time Delays for Emergency Patients in Events of Concurrent Mass Casualty Incidents

“…5 The PRT delay is well known to occur in MCIs according to many studies. [6][7][8][9] In a previous study, the PRT of emergency medical services (EMS) was 2.5 times longer during MCIs compared with that during non-MCIs. 10 In addition, victims and even patients unrelated to MCIs had a longer waiting period for admission into receiving hospitals compared with the reference patients in non-MCIs.…”