ArticleScandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine2018
Comparing population and incident data for optimal air ambulance base locations in Norway.
Article in Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Geographical alignment of prehospital critical care services with population need for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Modeling IN out-of-hospital emergency medical services-a scoping review of approaches and applications.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Selection of helicopter bases and transport modes to minimize pre-hospital times in Iceland.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2025Article
- The impact of concurrency conflicts on optimal location of air ambulance bases in Norway.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Urban traffic accidents in Isfahan city: a study of prehospital response time intervals.International journal of emergency medicine · 2024Article
- Locating helicopter ambulance bases in Iceland: efficient and fair solutions.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2023Article
- Article
- Locating trauma centers considering patient safety.Health care management science · 2022Article
- The development of emergency medical services benefit score: a European Delphi study.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2021Article
- Introducing fairness in Norwegian air ambulance base location planning.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2021Article
- Statewide Ambulance Coverage of a Mixed Region of Urban, Rural and Frontier under Travel Time Catchment Areas.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Factors affecting development of air ambulance base: A systematic review and thematic analysis.Journal of education and health promotion · 2021Review
- Disaster preparedness should represent an augmentation of the everyday trauma system, but are we prepared?Trauma surgery & acute care open · 2021Article
- Defining a mission-based method to determine a HEMS unit's actual service area.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2019Article
- Improving ambulance coverage in a mixed urban-rural region in Norway using mathematical modeling.PloS one · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundHelicopter emergency medical services are important in many health care systems. Norway has a nationwide physician manned air ambulance service servicing a country with large geographical variations in population density and incident frequencies. The aim of the study was to compare optimal air ambulance base locations using both population and incident data.
methodsWe used municipality population and incident data for Norway from 2015. The 428 municipalities had a median (5-95 percentile) of 4675 (940-36,264) inhabitants and 10 (2-38) incidents. Optimal helicopter base locations were estimated using the Maximal Covering Location Problem (MCLP) optimization model, exploring the number and location of bases needed to cover various fractions of the population for time thresholds 30 and 45 min, in green field scenarios and conditioned on the existing base structure.
resultsThe existing bases covered 96.90% of the population and 91.86% of the incidents for time threshold 45 min. Correlation between municipality population and incident frequencies was -0.0027, and optimal base locations varied markedly between the two data types, particularly when lowering the target time. The optimal solution using population density data put focus on the greater Oslo area, where one third of Norwegians live, while using incident data put focus on low population high incident areas, such as northern Norway and winter sport resorts.
conclusionUsing population density data as a proxy for incident frequency is not recommended, as the two data types lead to different optimal base locations. Lowering the target time increases the sensitivity to choice of data.
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