Der Anaesthesist
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Plasmatic coagulation disorders in trauma patients are common and their management is subject to current guidelines. Less evidence exists for platelet function. Although it is known that several trauma-associated factors have a negative influence on platelet function, routine monitoring has not yet become established. ⋯ Approximately one quarter to one third of primarily admitted trauma patients without long-term anticoagulation medication showed a delayed platelet activation in the PFA-100 test. By considering all trauma patients an even higher rate can be expected. The Hb and fibrinogen levels at admission can be helpful to estimate platelet disorders. The development of platelet assays to guide the resuscitation of individual patients seems to be absolutely necessary. The contribution of platelet disorders to trauma-induced coagulopathy is not sufficiently understood. Regarding the importance assigned to platelet transfusion or administration of desmopressin, these aspects should be the subject of further research.
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Health services research (HSR) is a multidisciplinary field of research that describes disease treatment and health care and their framework conditions. In the last 20 years, the HSR aspect became more and more the clinical focus of intensive care medicine. Under this aspect HSR investigates the use of clinical measures and their impact on patient outcome under routine intensive care medical conditions. ⋯ As part of the establishment of the innovation fund for HSR, promising intensive medical care projects have been promoted to improve the quality of care and the quality of long-term outcome for intensive care patients. An important focus lies on the identification of factors that improve long-term quality of life after intensive care. The expansion of registries and telemedicine in intensive care offers the opportunity to bundle and share experiences more effectively and thereby establish (guideline-based) treatment recommendations faster in the clinical practice.
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Due to an increasing number of severe complications reported during the prehospital application of laryngeal tubes, the Austrian Society for Anesthesiology, Resuscitation and Intensive Care Medicine (ÖGARI) is prompted to formulate a respective statement. With regard to the current training situation and the applicable laws, ÖGARI recommends to convert the "Emergency Competence for Endotracheal Intubation (NKI)" for emergency paramedics into an "Emergency Competence for Extraglottic Airway Management, (NK-EGA)". Training should include at least 40 h of theoretical instruction, hands-on training on the manikin to secure mastery of the methodology and at least 20 successful applications under clinically elective conditions in adult patients under direct medical supervision. ⋯ Only 2nd generation EGA should be used. After successful EGA placement timely cuff pressure monitoring and gastric suction should be performed. The use of an EGA by ambulance-men cannot be recommended; these have to be limited to bag-mask ventilation.