Prehospital and disaster medicine
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Prehosp Disaster Med · Apr 1992
An analysis of invasive airway management in a suburban emergency medical services system.
Airway management is the most critical and potentially life-saving intervention performed by emergency medical service (EMS) providers. Invasive airway management often is required in non-cardiac-arrest patients who are combative or otherwise uncooperative. The success of prehospital invasive airway management in this patient population was evaluated. ⋯ Prehospital providers can intubate a high but improvable proportion of non-cardiac-arrested patients by both the orotracheal and nasotracheal routes. The use of pharmacologic adjuncts to facilitate the prehospital intubation of selected, non-cardiac-arrested patients is a promising adjunct that needs further evaluation.