Authors: FrançoisXavier Duchateau Alexis Burnod Souhayl Dahmani Sandrine Delpierre Agnès RicardHibon Jean Mantz
Publish Date: 2008/04/11
Volume: 34, Issue: 8, Pages: 1544-1545
Abstract
Aging represents a major issue for the healthcare system in Western countries While age alone is an inaccurate criterion for allocation of health resources it plays a major role in mortality of patients with organ failures 1 Situations in which elderly patients present with an acute lifethreatening pathology represent an increasing number of calls for the French Emergency Medical Service EMS system In such cases both a physician and paramedics are available on scene within minutes following the call Recent data suggest that adding advanced life support capabilities to existing EMS systems can have a positive impact on outcomes in certain patient populations 2 However the benefits of this major resourceconsuming organization have not been determined to date Basically the survival rate of this patient subpopulation who present for medical/surgical emergency remains unknown Therefore we examined the survival to discharge of patients aged 80 years or over managed by EMS
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