Prehospital emergency care : official journal of the National Association of EMS Physicians and the National Association of State EMS Directors
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The Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) framework is a validated process that is used to identify individuals with substance use disorders (SUDs) and then encourage them to engage in and facilitate entry into treatment. It is not known how well SBIRT can be incorporated into prehospital practice and what barriers to Emergency Medical Services (EMS) implementation of an SBIRT program might arise. The aim of this project was to implement a pilot EMS based SBIRT program. Then, after program implementation, to identify barriers to the prehospital use of SBIRT programs. ⋯ Although EMS clinicians found the SBIRT training to be useful, they did not incorporate the use of the SBIRT model into their prehospital patient care, citing too many barriers to its implementation and use.
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Previous research demonstrated that the numerical Cincinnati Prehospital Stroke Scale (CPSS) identifies large vessel occlusion (LVO) at similar rates compared to dedicated LVO screening tools. We aimed to compare numerical CPSS to additional stroke scales using a national emergency medical services (EMS) database. ⋯ The less complex CPSS exhibited comparable performance to three frequently employed LVO detection tools. The EMS leadership, medical directors, and stroke system directors should weigh the complexity of stroke severity instruments and the challenges of ensuring consistent and accurate use when choosing which tool to implement. The straightforward and widely adopted CPSS may improve compliance while maintaining accuracy in LVO detection.
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This systematic review aims to determine the effectiveness of ambulance transportation versus helicopter transportation on mortality for trauma patients. ⋯ This systematic review found that adjusted analyses consistently favored air transport over ground transport. Unadjusted analyses showed no significant difference between the two modes of transport, except in specific subgroups. Further subgroup analyses revealed notable disparities between the two modalities, suggesting that these differences may be influenced by multiple factors. These findings highlight the need for further research to clarify the true impact of transport modality on trauma outcomes.
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Paramedic services face increasing challenges due to delays in patient transfer of care (TOC) at emergency departments (EDs). Prolonged TOC times directly impact paramedic services' ability to provide emergency response, though the patient and clinical factors contributing to these delays remain unclear. We examined TOC times for all transports to the ED and analyzed factors associated with prolonged TOC. ⋯ Prolonged TOC times disproportionately affect older or clinically complex patients, regardless of their acuity or need for paramedic intervention. Our findings highlight the importance for paramedic services, hospitals, and stakeholders to develop targeted care models and collaborations to reduce prolonged TOC.
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Antiarrhythmic administration is an important treatment for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) with a shockable rhythm, but a minimal amount is known about disparities in such antiarrhythmic practices. We sought to investigate the association between community race/ethnicity and prehospital antiarrhythmic administration for OHCA. ⋯ While antiarrhythmic administration rate was lower for minority communities and time to antiarrhythmic was higher for Black OHCAs, time to antiarrhythmic administration was lower for Hispanic/Latino OHCAs.