Prehospital and disaster medicine
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Recent events have heightened awareness of disaster health issues and the need to prepare the health workforce to plan for and respond to major incidents. This has been reinforced at an international level by the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine, which has proposed an international educational framework. ⋯ This educational framework will provide an infrastructure around which future educational programs in Disaster Health in Australia may be designed and delivered. It will permit improved articulation for students between the various levels and greater consistency between programs so that operational responders may have a consistent language and operational approach to the management of major events.
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Prehosp Disaster Med · Jan 2010
Evaluation of the effect of prehospital application of continuous positive airway pressure therapy in acute respiratory distress.
The impact of the use of mask continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) on patients with acute respiratory distress in the prehospital, rural setting has not been defined. The goal was to test the use of CPAP using the Respironics WhisperFlow CPAP in patients presenting with acute respiratory distress. This was a collaborative evaluation of CPAP involving a rural EMS agency and the regional medical center. Patient outcomes including the overall rate of intubation-both in the field and in the emergency department (ED), and length of stay in the hospital and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) were tracked. ⋯ The use of the CPAP in the prehospital setting is beneficial for patients in acute respiratory distress.