Telemedicine, Trauma
Conditions
Brief summary
Physicians in charge of medical regulation within French SAMU have to take difficult decisions regarding patient's orientation (in or out-of hospital care) but suffer from lack of information. Such information usually consist in a simple phone conversation without any visual information. Visual assesment of the situation would be of great help, especially for traumatized patients. Private Ambulance societies all over territory in charge of SAMU 86 now work with teletransmission devices allowing photography transmission. The objective of the study is to determine if routine use of teletransmitted photography help SAMU 86's physians for a better orientation of non-severe traumatized patients, especially by avoiding unnecessary transportations to Emergency Departments.
Interventions
OTHERPhotography teletransmission
A photography of the trauma is teletransmitted to SAMU's physician
OTHERNo photo
Usual management without photography teletransmission
Sponsors
Poitiers University Hospital
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
DIAGNOSTIC
Masking
SINGLE (Subject)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Emergency call at SAMU for trauma issue * Pre-hospital management by private ambulance equipped with teletransmission device
Exclusion criteria
* Severe trauma with need of a pre-hospital emergency medical team * Traffic accident * Head trauma associated with anticoagulant therapy or platelet antiagregant therapy * Pre-hospital management by firefighters
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Impact of Photography on patient orientation | 1 - 2 hours | Number of patient dispatched anywhere else than the local hospital after ambulance assesement. Either the patient was dispatched to a higher level hospital (i.e. if the local hospital doesn't provide surgical facility when the patient needs it) or he was leaved at home and oriented to a general practitioner. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Undertriage | 10 days | To evaluate the number of patients initially oriented to out-of hospital care that needed to go to emergency department during following days |
| Overtriage | 10 days | To evaluate the number of patients initially oriented to in-hospital care when it wasn't necessary |
Countries
France
Outcome results
None listed