Prehospital Emergency Medical Services Departure Interval: Does Patient Age Matter?

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 608-613 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Schnegg ◽  
Mathieu Pasquier ◽  
Pierre-Nicolas Carron ◽  
Bertrand Yersin ◽  
Fabrice Dami

AbstractIntroductionThe concept of response time with minimal interval is intimately related to the practice of emergency medicine. The factors influencing this time interval are poorly understood.ProblemIn a process of improvement of response time, the impact of the patient’s age on ambulance departure intervals was investigated.MethodThis was a 3-year observational study. Departure intervals of ambulances, according to age of patients, were analyzed and a multivariate analysis, according to time of day and suspected medical problem, was performed.ResultsA total of 44,113 missions were included, 2,417 (5.5%) in the pediatric group. Mean departure delay for the adult group was 152.9 seconds, whereas it was 149.3 seconds for the pediatric group (P =.018).ConclusionA statistically significant departure interval difference between missions for children and adults was found. The difference, however, probably was not significant from a clinical point of view (four seconds).SchneggB, PasquierM, CarronPN, YersinB, DamiF. Prehospital Emergency Medical Services departure interval: does patient age matter?Prehosp Disaster Med. 2016;31(6):608–613.

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-301
Author(s):  
Andrew Flynn

Rural prehospital emergency medical services are often lacking when compared with their urban counterparts in terms of resources and coordinated resource use: can only employ important resources, such as paramedics, during limited shifts. This project demonstrates a method for determining the most effective use of these limited resources in a rural Red Cross ambulance service in Guápiles, Costa Rica. In this community, paramedic services are only available six days a week for twelve hours. Emergency call frequency was mapped using 20 months of traffic accident data and after establishing that traffic accident frequency was statistically dependent on the time of day, polynomial models of the data were generated. The model functions were integrated and the results were tested for accuracy. Integrals were calculated, and the results were reported to the Guápiles Red Cross committee to achieve an improved service. Methods such as this can be applied to any emergency response service.KEY WORDSWorld Health Organization (WHO), Prehospital Emergency Medical Service(s) (PEMS), Traffic Accident (TA), Téchnico de Emergencias Medicas (Paramedic), Advanced Life Support (ALS)


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Burnett ◽  
Dolly Panchal ◽  
Bjorn Peterson ◽  
Eric Ernest ◽  
Kent Griffith ◽  
...  

IntroductionAgitated patients who present a danger to themselves or emergency medical services (EMS) providers may require chemical restraints.  Haloperidol is employed for chemical restraint in many EMS services.  Recently, ketamine has been introduced as an alternate option for prehospital sedation.  On-scene time is a unique metric in prehospital medicine which has been linked to outcomes in multiple patient populations. When used for chemical restraint, the impact of ketamine relative to haloperidol on on-scene time is unknown.Objective: To evaluate whether the use of ketamine for chemical restraint was associated with a clinically significant (≥5 minute) increased on-scene time compared to a haloperidol based regimen.MethodsPatients who received haloperidol or ketamine for chemical restraint were identified by retrospective chart review.  On-scene time was compared between groups using an unadjusted Student t-test powered to 80% to detect a ≥5 minute difference in on-scene time.Results110 cases were abstracted (Haloperidol = 55; Ketamine = 55). Of the patients receiving haloperidol, 11/55 (20%) were co-administered a benzodiazepine, 4/55 (7%) received diphenhydramine and 34/55 (62%) received the three drugs in combination. There were no demographic differences between the haloperidol and ketamine groups.  On-scene time was not statistically different for patients receiving a haloperidol based regimen compared to ketamine (18.2 minutes, [95% CI 15.7-20.8] vs. 17.6 minutes, [95% CI 15.1-20.0]; p = 0.71).ConclusionsThe use of prehospital ketamine for chemical restraint was not associated with a clinically significant (≥5 minute) increased on-scene time compared to a haloperidol based regimen.  


Diabetologia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (10) ◽  
pp. 1868-1879 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Villani ◽  
Arul Earnest ◽  
Karen Smith ◽  
Dimitra Giannopoulos ◽  
Georgia Soldatos ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Vipul Mishra ◽  
Richa Ahuja ◽  
N. Nezamuddin ◽  
Geetam Tiwari ◽  
Kavi Bhalla

International standards recommend provision of one ambulance for every 50,000 people to fulfill demand for transporting patients to definitive care facilities in low and middle income countries (LMICs). Governments’ consistent attempt to build capacity of emergency medical services (EMS) in LMICs has been financially demanding. This study is an attempt to assess the feasibility of capacity building of existing EMS in Delhi, India by using taxis as an alternative mode of transport for emergency transportation of road traffic crash victims to enable improvement in response time for road traffic crashes where time criticality is deemed important. Performance of the proposed system is evaluated based on response time, coverage and distance. The system models the performance and quantifies the taxi–ambulance configuration for achieving EMS performance within international standards.


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