Prehospital emergency care : official journal of the National Association of EMS Physicians and the National Association of State EMS Directors
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The objective of this study was to identify clinical findings that are associated with spinal fracture and/or spinal cord injuries in prehospital trauma patients. ⋯ Prehospital clinical findings of altered mental status, neurologic deficit, evidence of intoxication, spinal pain, and suspected extremity fracture were documented for all patients with significant spinal injuries in this series. These findings may be useful to identify patients who require prehospital spinal immobilization.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
The PTL, Combitube, laryngeal mask, and oral airway: a randomized prehospital comparative study of ventilatory device effectiveness and cost-effectiveness in 470 cases of cardiorespiratory arrest.
A prehospital study was conducted to assess and compare three alternative airway devices and the oral airway for use by non-Advanced Life Support emergency medical assistants (EMAs). ⋯ The PTL, LM, and Combi appear to offer substantial advances over the OA/BVM system. Although the most costly, the Combitube was associated with the least problems with ventilation and was the most preferred by a majority of EMAs.
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Out-of-hospital emergency medical services (EMS) need relevant and measurable indicators of quality. Those front-line workers who provide service directly to the customer are integral to the process of defining quality. The authors' objective was to obtain from paramedics, the front-line workers in the EMS system, their perspective on quality of care. ⋯ From the perspective of the study participants, indicators of the quality of out-of-hospital care differ from many used in traditional EMS quality assurance programs. Future studies should investigate the applicability of these indicators to the total quality management of EMS systems.
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Comparative Study
Influence of demographic variables in prehospital treatment of patients with chest pain.
To determine whether the number of interventions requested by EMS personnel for patients with acute, nontraumatic chest pain varied with the patient's gender or race. ⋯ Among older patients and among young females, EMS personnel requested similar numbers of interventions for patient complaining of acute, nontraumatic chest pain regardless of patients race. Patterns of care appeared to differ for young males, a finding that warrants further study.