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A national Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) was introduced in Denmark in 2014 to ensure the availability of physician-led critical care for all patients regardless of location.

Appropriate dispatch of HEMS is known to be complex, and resource utilisation is a highly relevant topic. Population-based studies on patient characteristics are fundamental when evaluating and optimising a system. The aim of this study was to describe the patient population treated by the Danish HEMS in terms of demographics, pre-hospital diagnostics, severity of illness or injury, and the critical care interventions performed.

The study is a retrospective nationwide population-based study based on data gathered from the Danish HEMS database. We included primary missions resulting in a patient encounter registered between October 1^st 2014 and April 30^th 2018.

Of 13.391 dispatches …