Medical assistance to travellers: a new concept in insurance--cooperation with an airline.

Medical assistance to travellers is a new concept in insurance. Payment of a premium makes it possible in an emergency for a traveller, by means of a phone call, to obtain free medical support, i.e., on-the-spot treatment, repatriation, hospitalization, etc. This kind of service necessarily involves a 24-h telephone system; a network of national and international correspondents, physicians and nurses trained in resuscitation; and sophisticated medical equipment, aircraft, etc. This study gathered data on the activity across 1982 of such an assistance company, especially in its cooperation with a scheduled international airline for air evacuation of patients who had become ill or had been injured far from their homes. Of 1618 repatriated patients in the single year, 1241 were evacuated by air (247 of these by the airline involved in the study) mainly from Europe or Africa. Traumatology, cardiovascular diseases, and psychiatric syndromes were the main causes of air evacuation. Medical equipment and personnel were placed aboard aircraft based on the gravity of each case. Assistance contracts provide valuable back-up for travellers' medical and psychological safety; close cooperation with airlines is of prime importance, both to the patient and to airline operations.