Articles: emergency-medical-services.
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The relationship between the bystander witness type and receipt of bystander CPR (BCPR) is not well understood. Herein we compared BCPR administration between family and non-family witnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). ⋯ This study found differences in BCPR administration between family and non-family witnessed OHCA cases. Elucidation of witness characteristics may be useful to determine populations that would benefit most from CPR education and training.
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2023
ReviewReview article: Prehospital telehealth for emergency care: A scoping review.
Telehealth has been successfully implemented in the prehospital setting to expedite emergency care, although applications are still in their infancy. With recent advances in technologies, it is not described how prehospital telehealth has evolved over the past decade. This scoping review aimed to answer the research question 'what telehealth platforms have been used to facilitate communication between prehospital healthcare providers and emergency clinicians in the past decade?'. ⋯ Challenges to telehealth involved technical, clinical and organisational issues. Few facilitators of prehospital telehealth were identified. Telehealth platforms to facilitate prehospital to ED communication continue to develop but require technological advances and improved network connectivity to support implementation in the prehospital environment.
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Studies of outcome differences by sex in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) have produced mixed results that may depend on age, a potential surrogate for menopausal status. ⋯ Women <55 years were more likely to survive than men <55 years following VF-OHCA. The biologic mechanism represented by VF waveform mediated some, though not all, of the outcome difference.
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We aimed to evaluate the duration and frequency of communication between EMS (Emergency Medical Services) and ED (Emergency Department) staff during handoff and the subsequent time to critical cardiac care (rhythm determination, defibrillation) using CA (cardiac arrest) video review. ⋯ There is no standardization for handoff reports from EMS to ED staff for CA patients. Using video review, we demonstrated the variable communication during handoff. Improvements to this process could reduce the time to critical cardiac care interventions.