**1. Introduction**

The process of creating the Emergency Medical Services began in the 1990s from the creation of the Integrated Medical Rescue. However, starting only from 25 July 2001 the first act about the Emergency Medical Services was created [1]. Throughout the following years, the assumptions of the act were revised, which led to the creation of the act currently in place from the 8 September 2006 [2,3]. The creation of a formalized structure in the form of a system based on the interdependencies of the individual components that make it up, such as people, products, and services, which are all connected with the implementation of one common goal was a key undertaking that conditioned the saving of human life. The main goal of the Medical Rescue System is guaranteeing help in sudden situations that directly threaten the life of a person [4,5]. Included in the Emergency Medical Services are Medical Emergency Teams (ambulances; air ambulances; water ambulances) and also Hospital Emergency Wards [6]. The primary task of the Medical Emergency Team is

**Citation:** Nadolny, K.; Wierzbik-Stro ´nska, M.; Ładny, J.R.;


Grabarek, B.O.; Warmusz, O.; Boro ´n, D.; Ostenda, A. Emergency Medical Teams Interventions due to Cardiovascular Diseases in 2018: Polish Regional Observational Study. *Medicina* **2021**, *57*, 139. https:// doi.org/10.3390/medicina57020139

Academic Editor: Camelia Diaconu Received: 5 December 2020 Accepted: 2 February 2021 Published: 4 February 2021

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granting help to the victim on site of the incident, and if it is advisable, to also transport the victim to the appropriate reference unit in the shortest time possible [7]. The second, incredibly important units are the Hospital Emergency Wards, which are responsible for carrying out the initial diagnosis as well as treating the person in the necessary range, which is especially important in sudden life-threatening situations [8]. In reference to the Emergency Medical Service system, an incredibly important term is the effectiveness of action, defined as the correct action being done in the correct method, where effectiveness and efficiency are key. It is also worth noting the two critical elements in the functioning of the Emergency Medical Services in Poland [9,10]. One of which is highlighting the role of the medical distributor, who, based on the information they gather from the interview they carried out through telephone communication and also on their own knowledge and subjective instinct decides, whether an intervention by the Medical Emergency Team is or is not necessary [11–13]. A second factor that determines the effectiveness of the system is the time taken between the moment an incident was reported (accident) to the moment the Medical Emergency Team arrives at the incident site. Therefore, a conversion factor is adopted in this regard, that on average every 2 min, a distance of at least 1 km has to be covered [14].

One of the causes of undertaking an intervention by the Medical Emergency Team were reports due to cardiovascular diseases, which are a wide range of diseases according to the International Classification of Diseases—ICD-10 [15]. It is estimated that in Poland, approximately 100 people die each day due to heart failure, which constitutes around 20% of all deaths due to cardiovascular problems. Moreover, an unsettling fact is that one in three male deaths and one in 10 female deaths are due to cardiovascular diseases for people above 64 years of age, which is the group of people most active professionally [16,17].

The goal of this work was to assess the interventions for cardiovascular causes (ICD-10: I) and analyze the time between the request for intervention and the arrival of the Medical Emergency Team realized by the Voivodeship Rescue Service in Katowice in the period between 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2018.
