Severe finger injuries such as amputation, degloving injury, and arterial injury are not only emergency conditions but also require technically challenging operations that may include microsurgery. Because the primary treatment can directly affect the final function of the hand, a swift, accurate evaluation to determine patients. This situation, unfortunately, is typical in the Japanese medical system. In addition, there is no law in Japan corresponding to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) of the United States, which may punish hospitals for turning patients away from an emergency department. Therefore,many hospitals in Japan refuse to accept patients with a severe finger
injury. This has been a nationwide problem, especially in urban areas, where there are many hospitals but also many patients.
To address this problem, we developed a system that
incorporates timely direct communication and mobile phone
photos to aid in the smooth transport of patients with severe finger
injury to appropriate hospitals. We named the system Interactive
Teletriage. The purpose of this study was to investigate features
related to the transportation of patients with severe finger injuries
in the city of Nagoya from 2010 to 2013. We began managing
patient transportation using Interactive Teletriage in August
2011 and subsequently evaluated the system by comparing results
before and after its implementation.