< anchor>
We will continue our series of reports on
our emergency medical system today (19th). The government is developing a high-tech system to solve the problem of moving around hospitals because they can't find emergency beds. However, such a system is only a trial operation and has not been well implemented in the field.

Reporter Lee Kang interviewed the reason.

<Reporter>
A paramedic in an
ambulance carrying a patient talks to himself.

[Paramedic: You've been diagnosed with heart disease due to angina pectoris, and you're taking medication for high blood pressure, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes?]

The operator's words are automatically entered into the terminal, and this information is transmitted to a nearby emergency room.

The system, which is being piloted in Wonju, connects only one hospital, and increasing the number of hospitals covered can reduce the time and effort of finding an emergency room.

[ER staff: We've been asked to transfer, we'll accept it.]

This is because you can go directly to the emergency room where you requested transfer.

Technology has already been developed to prevent "emergency room hit-and-runs" by allowing paramedics to enter a patient's condition and immediately share it with the 119 situation room and hospital emergency departments, and the event was held in March.

[Moderator: I am confident that the Chungbuk smart emergency medical service will be widely distributed, and it will become a safe and healthy Chungbuk.]

However, these systems have not been fully implemented in the field.

Why?

A doctor at a large hospital who worked on the development of the system confided that "many hospitals are reluctant to share the condition of patients in the ambulance directly with their hospital emergency departments."

"Many hospitals are inflating the capacity of their emergency departments, such as the on-call system they currently maintain, and reporting them to the Ministry of Welfare and others, in order to get a higher score in the government's evaluation of emergency medical institutions and receive more government subsidies."

However, if the new system is introduced, the record of rejection of the emergency department will remain intact, and it may be used as a basis for inflating reports or as a basis for evaluating emergency medical institutions, so hospitals concerned about this will not introduce it.

Another senior representative of a large hospital points to a similar problem.

[Senior person in charge of a large hospital: There are many reasons why it is difficult to treat patients, but that is not something to be proud of, so they are reluctant to reveal it.]

The fraught relationship between the fire department and the hospital, which is supposed to operate the system, is also a stumbling block.

An official who worked to expand the system says that the combination of the two agencies into one system has resulted in a situation where both are uncooperative.

[System development official: The problem is that the fire department and the hospital are not close, and if the patient dies, the dissatisfaction (with each other) about whose fault it is, it was very difficult to get through it.]

The government entities that support the development of the system are the Ministry of Science and Agriculture and the Ministry of Land.

The Department of Human Services also announced in March that it would develop an emergency room recommendation app for emergency patients.

At the national level, at least in neighboring attempts, the system will have to be integrated to function, which will cost additional time and money.

(Video Interview: Kim Tae-hoon, Video Editing: Lee Hong-myung)



Enlarge the image

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<Anchor>
Reporter Lee Kang, who covered
this story, is here.

Q. Is the "emergency room call rejection record" disappearing?

[Reporter Lee Kang: If the emergency room does not accept the patient brought by the 119 paramedics and refuses to answer the patient "over the phone", there will be no record of the case. Let's take a look at the data issued by the Ministry of Welfare on the 4th while sanctioning four hospitals involved in the hit-and-run accident in the Daegu emergency room. If you look at the last part of the corrective order, it means to record all the responses of the medical staff to the 4 emergency service's call to the patient. It means that it hasn't been done until now. Was it only Daegu hospitals? I checked with the Department of Human Services and found that all hospital emergency departments across the country were the same.]

Q. Why did an insider, a "practicing doctor," report it?

[Reporter Lee Kang: The informant is a person who has been engaged in the development of related systems for the past 119 years. He reported it to me by summing up the situation he had experienced so far and describing it as "red money." As such a deficit accumulates, he criticized that the primitive thing of emergency services are turning the phone in search of an empty emergency room in Korea, an IT powerhouse. In order to solve the emergency room hit-and-run with the advanced system reported earlier, accurate information disclosure by hospitals, cooperation between agencies, and finally, integrated efforts between ministries should be prioritized.]