Effectiveness of the model of organizing emergency care outside the hospital

Pre-hospital emergency care is a very important activity in the emergency system to improve the patient's ability and chance of survival. Recognizing this importance, the Da Nang City Emergency Center constantly improves its capacity, organizes effective out-of-hospital emergency care activities, and promptly saves the patient's life.

The City Emergency Center coordinated with other forces to rescue a fisherman who had a stroke while working at sea. Photo: TTCC

Outpatient emergency care in all conditions

The City Emergency Center is one of the few units in the country that has established satellite emergency stations. This is due to the fact that due to the nature of organizing ambulances in one place, when people call for help, they are always delayed. Therefore, all human resources, equipment, and vehicles of the center are evenly distributed among the stations, ensuring 24/24 operation, 3 full shifts/day.

According to the leader of the City Emergency Center, the operating characteristics of the emergency teams are always urgent and timely; meeting the requirements of emergency and intensive resuscitation outside the hospital in all conditions and situations regarding weather, time, terrain, etc.

Determining that stroke is an extremely dangerous disease, the emergency time must be calculated in minutes. Therefore, when people call the emergency hotline 115, in addition to a professional medical team arriving at the scene to provide emergency care and promptly transport the patient to the hospital, the City Emergency Center also provides first aid instructions over the phone, stroke exploitation and emergency procedures.

The process with the time from receiving the call until the patient is handed over to the hospital's stroke team is 36 minutes according to the American Stroke Association's standards. This process contributes to improving and enhancing the quality of stroke emergency care, as well as raising public awareness.

In 2024 alone, the old Da Nang Emergency Center provided emergency care for nearly 400 suspected stroke cases. In addition, the center also provided timely emergency care for stroke cases while working at sea. In parallel, the Da Nang Emergency Center also implemented communication solutions on stroke emergency care.

In particular, the red alert process for emergency stroke treatment has been deployed with stroke treatment hospitals and the RESQ-EMS toolkit has been used to enter data, monitor and evaluate, and gradually improve the quality of the process.

Continuously improve capacity

With outstanding results in perfecting the out-of-hospital stroke emergency procedure, Da Nang Emergency Center was honored to receive the Diamond EMS Angels award - the highest award.

City Emergency Center staff coordinated with other forces to actively rescue the fisherman who had a stroke. Photo: TTCC

According to the leader of the Da Nang Emergency Center, EMS Angels is a professional award in the field of quality management of out-of-hospital stroke emergency procedures, implemented by the European Association of Extra-hospital Emergency Medicine (EUSEM) in coordination with the Global Stroke Quality Management System (RES-Q) and the Angels Initiative program in 2021.

The goal of the award is to help participating units improve the out-of-hospital stroke emergency process, from approaching stroke patients at the scene to taking them to the most optimal treatment facility.

In Vietnam, there are 2 units participating in the award: Da Nang Emergency Center and Ho Chi Minh City Emergency Center. Da Nang Emergency Center started implementing the plan to manage out-of-hospital stroke emergency cases in March 2023.

After more than 1 year of implementing the plan, in September 2024, the center was honored to receive the EMS Angels Diamond award. Previously, the center was the first unit in Vietnam, along with Malaysia, the first unit in Asia to receive the EMS Angels Gold award.

The leader of the City Emergency Center said that in order to perform better emergency work, the unit strives to become a specialized center in the field of emergency medicine outside the hospital; as well as to enhance the resilience of the emergency medicine system outside the hospital in Da Nang against natural disasters.

At the same time, strive to have 10% of Da Nang's population mastering first aid techniques and shorten the time for emergency teams to reach patients from receiving a call from an average of 15 minutes to 10 minutes by 2035.

According to the Department of Health, Da Nang is focusing on developing the outpatient emergency system by mobilizing resources from all medical facilities in the area and professionalizing them. Upgrading the City Emergency Center to become a regional satellite unit, providing technical expertise to medical facilities in the city and in the region in the field of outpatient emergency care.

Source: https://baodanang.vn/hieu-qua-mo-hinh-to-chuc-cap-cuu-ngoai-vien-3301167.html