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Charles Shufflebarger, MD; Ricard Townsend, MD
Allegheny General Hospital Pittsburgh

JAMA. 1987;258(17):2378.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

We congratulate Baxt and Moody¹ for their study on the effect of flight crew composition on the mortality of helicopter-transported trauma victims. A few additional comments may aid in the interpretation of these data.

First, strict comparison of the probability of survival (P_s) of patients who died in each group is not presented. Although P_s strata were "statistically similar," the vast majority of patients had a P_s lower than.95. Only 76 patients (36 treated by a nurse/paramedic team and 40 treated by a nurse/physician team) had a P_s of.95 or less, and only 38 (16 treated by a nurse/paramedic team and 22 treated by a nurse/physician team) had a P_s of.50 or less. Including large numbers of patients with low-risk injuries would statistically alter the effects of intervention on the small number of patients with more critical injuries. Statistical significance within the . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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