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    Espen Fevang

    Background The helicopter emergency services (HEMS) Benefit Score (HBS) is a nine-level scoring system developed to evaluate the benefits of HEMS missions. The HBS has been in clinical use for two decades in its original form. Advances in... more
    Background The helicopter emergency services (HEMS) Benefit Score (HBS) is a nine-level scoring system developed to evaluate the benefits of HEMS missions. The HBS has been in clinical use for two decades in its original form. Advances in prehospital care, however, have produced demand for a revision of the HBS. Therefore, we developed the emergency medical services (EMS) Benefit Score (EBS) based on the former HBS. As reflected by its name, the aim of the EBS is to measure the benefits produced by the whole EMS systems to patients. Methods This is a four-round, web-based, international Delphi consensus study with a consensus definition made by experts from seven countries. Participants reviewed items of the revised HBS on a 5-point Likert scale. A content validity index (CVI) was calculated, and agreement was defined as a 70% CVI. Study included experts from seven European countries. Of these, 18 were prehospital expert panellists and 11 were in-hospital commentary board members. R...
    Research on helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) in major incidents is predominately based on case descriptions reported in a heterogeneous fashion. Uniform data reported with a consensus-based template could facilitate the... more
    Research on helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) in major incidents is predominately based on case descriptions reported in a heterogeneous fashion. Uniform data reported with a consensus-based template could facilitate the collection, analysis, and exchange of experiences. This type of database presently exists for major incident reporting at www.majorincidentreporting.net. This study aimed to develop a HEMS-specific major incident template. This Delphi study included 17 prehospital critical care physicians with current or previous HEMS experience. All participants interacted through e-mail. We asked these experts to define data variables and rank which were most important to report during an immediate prehospital medical response to a major incident. Five rounds were conducted. In the first round, the experts suggested 98 variables. After 5 rounds, 21 variables were determined by consensus. These variables were formatted in a template with 4 main categories: HEMS backgroun...