Are race, age, gender, and insurance status determinants in interhospital helicopter transport time and frequency?

Publication/Presentation Date

1-1-1993

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To examine the effects of age, race, gender, and insurance status on utilization and times-to-transport (TTT) for interhospital air medical transfers from rural hospitals to tertiary care centers.

DESIGN: A retrospective review of interhospital transport records. The TTT was examined as a function of age, gender, race, and insurance status using the Student's t-test for unpaired samples. The Exact Binomial Test (alpha error at 0.05) was used to compare the observed versus expected transport rates for non-whites. SETTING/PARTITIPANTS: A total of 268 patient transfers from hospitals within a two-county region in central Pennsylvania to tertiary care centers was analyzed. All records with sufficient demographic, TTT, or insurance data were included. Absence of data was the only exclusion.

RESULTS: The TTT (mean +/-SD) was longer (2666 +/-3940 minutes (min.) versus 619 +/-909 min., respectively) for adult than pediatric patients (p less than .01), and (2588 +/-4041 min. versus 640 +/-1301 min., respectively) for insured versus uninsured patients (p less than .01). The observed proportion of non-whites transported was less than expected (.41% versus 2.1%) based on the proportion of non-whites in the region (p less than .05).

CONCLUSION: The TTT was longer for adults than for children and for the insured than the uninsured. Non-whites were transported less frequently than predicted.

Volume

8

Issue

4

First Page

311

Last Page

315

ISSN

1049-023X

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

PubMedID

10146430

Department(s)

Department of Emergency Medicine

Document Type

Article

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