Loading...
The concept of the “golden hour” — that a seriously injured patient must be transported to definitive care within 60 minutes of injury or suffer direct harm due to delay — was instrumental in the formation of emergency medical services (EMS) systems and the design of trauma systems worldwide, despite a paucity of supporting evidence. In a secondary analysis of a prospective out-of-hospital trauma registry, researchers determined the association between EMS response times and in-hospital mortality for 3656 patients (age, ≥15) who suffered trauma (defined as any blunt or penetrating injury or burn) and demonstrated prehospital physiologic abnormalities (defined as systolic blood pressure ≤90 mm Hg, Glasgow Coma Scale score ≤12, respiratory ra…