Air medical journal
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Air medical journal · Nov 2014
Comparative StudyBenefit of mechanical chest compression devices in mountain HEMS: lessons learned from 1 year of experience and evaluation.
Pre-hospital care of cardiac arrest patients in the mountain environment is one of the most challenging problems for helicopter medical emergency services (HEMS) teams. To provide high-quality chest compression with minimal hand s-off-time is very demanding in the alpine area. ⋯ On the strength of our past experience, CPR under special circumstances like deep hypothermia, in which a prolonged CPR is essential, the use of the Lucas and/or AutoPulse was an easy and sufficient tool even in difficult alpine terrain which requires special rescue missions like winch or MERS evacuation.
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Air medical journal · Nov 2014
Paramedic specialization: a strategy for better out-of-hospital care.
Demographic, economic, and political forces are driving significant change in the US health care system. Paramedics are a health profession currently providing advanced emergency care and medical transportation throughout the United States. As the health care system demands more team-based care in nonacute, community, interfacility, and tactical response settings, specialized paramedic practitioners could be a valuable and well-positioned resource to meet these needs. ⋯ A fragmented approach to specialty paramedic practice currently exists across our country in which states, regulators, nonprofit organizations, and other health care professions influence and regulate the practice of paramedicine. Multiple other medical professions, however, have already developed effective systems over the last century that can be easily adapted to the practice of paramedicine. Paramedicine practitioners need to organize a profession-based specialty board to organize and standardize a specialty certification system that can be used on a national level.
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Air medical journal · Nov 2014
Randomized Controlled TrialIn-flight auscultation during medical air evacuation: comparison between traditional and amplified stethoscopes.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the capacity of a traditional stethoscope versus an electronically amplified one (expected to reduce background and ambient noise) to assess heart and respiratory sounds during medical transport. ⋯ This study showed that practitioners would be better helped in hearing cardiac and respiratory sounds with an electronically amplified stethoscope than with a traditional one during air medical transport in a medically configured Falcon 50 aircraft.
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There is a large body of literature that shows that the AirTraq device achieves equal or superior rates of successful intubation in all classes of user. A recent prospective human trial of the device questioned the first pass success rate and whether effective training could occur outside the Operating Room (OR). The purpose of this study was to investigate the first pass success rate for intubation with the AirTraq (AT) device utilizing only mannequin training in an air ambulance setting from Aug. 1 2009 to Aug. 1 2012 and compare it to direct laryngoscopy (DL). ⋯ AirTraq was shown to be as effective as direct laryngoscopy. All air crew training for the AirTraq device was performed on mannequins. The successof the device compared to DL shows that mannequin training is sufficient to implement the AirTraq device for pre-hospital intubation.
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Air medical journal · Nov 2014
Helicopter emergency medical service patient transport safe at night?
Dutch helicopter emergency medical services are available 24/7. Working without daylight brings additional challenges, both in patient care and in-flight operation. We retrospectively evaluated the safety of this nighttime helicopter transportation of patients. ⋯ We conclude that helicopter transportation of patients without daylight is safe and fast in a Dutch setting.