Prehospital emergency care : official journal of the National Association of EMS Physicians and the National Association of State EMS Directors
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Multicenter Study
Characteristics of the Pediatric Patients Treated by the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network's Affiliated EMS Agencies.
To describe pediatric patients transported by the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network's (PECARN's) affiliated emergency medical service (EMS) agencies and the process of submitting and aggregating data from diverse agencies. ⋯ Despite advances in data definitions and increased use of electronic databases nationally, data aggregation across EMS agencies was challenging, in part due to variable data collection methods and missing data. In our sample, only a small proportion of pediatric EMS patients required prehospital medications or interventions.
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Multicenter Study
Do Prolonged Primary Transport Times for Traumatic Brain Injury Patients Result in Deteriorating Physiology? A Cohort Study.
Recent interest has focused on reorganizing emergency medical services (EMS) for traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients, with bypass of nonspecialist hospitals and direct transportation to distant neuroscience centers. Although this could expedite neurosurgery and neurocritical care, deteriorating physiology could be deleterious. ⋯ The similarity between prehospital and ED vital signs, and lack of association between EMS interval and physiological deterioration, may support a strategy of direct transportation of TBI cases to specialist centers. Further research is necessary to identify patients at risk from deterioration during bypass and to investigate effects on mortality.
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The primary objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of two prehospital stroke screens in correctly classifying patients suspected of having a stroke. Secondarily, differences in the sensitivity and specificity of the two screening tools were assessed. ⋯ The two stroke scales under study demonstrated low sensitivity and specificity, with each scale performing marginally better in one of the two metrics assessed.
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Multicenter Study
Do infants less than 12 months of age with an apparent life-threatening event need transport to a pediatric critical care center?
Some emergency medical services (EMS) systems transport infants with an apparent life-threatening event (ALTE) directly to hospitals capable of pediatric critical care (PCC) monitoring. ⋯ Only 9.9% of infants presenting in the field with ALTE had an intervention warranting PCC management, suggesting that many ALTE patients may be safely transported to hospitals without PCC capability. This would allow for better resource utilization of specialty care hospitals and still provide an option for secondary transports for those few patients not correctly identified in the field as requiring PCC. History of resuscitation attempt, cyanosis, and more than one ALTE in 24 hours are independent risk factors for requiring PCC management.
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Multicenter Study
Paramedic ability to recognize ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction on prehospital electrocardiograms.
Identifying ST-segment elevation myocardial infarctions (STEMIs) by paramedics can decrease door-to-balloon times. While many paramedics are trained to obtain and interpret electrocardiograms (ECGs), it is unknown how accurately they can identify STEMIs. ⋯ Despite training and a high level of confidence, the paramedics in our study were only able to identify an inferior STEMI and two normal ECGs. Given the paramedics' low sensitivity and specificity, we cannot rely solely on their ECG interpretation to activate the cardiac catheterization laboratory. Future research should involve the evaluation of training programs that include assessment, initial training, testing, feedback, and repeat training.