Training, Practice, Research Lead to Successful Airway Management

Improving Intubation Lockey DJ, Healey B, Crewdson K, et al. Advanced airway management is necessary in prehospital trauma patients. Br J Anaesth. Dec. 23, 2014. [Epub ahead of print]. First and foremost, we’d like to congratulate JEMS on 35 years of quality EMS reporting. We’re honored and privileged to be part of this monthly, ground-breaking publication. Coming to us from the British Journal of Anaesthesia, David Lockey, MD, and associates set out to determine the demand for on-scene advanced airway interventions in London, U.K. In a one-year prospective observational study, they asked enhanced care teams (ECTs) to document airway compromise on arrival. Research: ECTs were dispatched to serious trauma cases automatically or by request of the first arriving paramedic crew. Comprised of a physician and a paramedic, ECTs had additional airway management training, responded by helicopter or rapid response vehicle, could perform rapid sequence intubation (RSI) and assumed care once they arrived. The ground paramedic crews in this system didn’t have any additional advanced airway training. They had access to standard basic airway adjuncts, laryngeal mask airways (LMAs) and iGels, and those registered before 2010 could perform non-pharmacologically facilitated endotracheal intubation (ETI). ECTs attended to a total of 1,963 patients during the study period. Out of these cases, 472 (24%) patients required advanced airway management and were intubated. Of these patients, 469 ...
Source: JEMS Special Topics - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Airway & Respiratory Columns Patient Care Source Type: news