Articles: emergency-medical-services.
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Vital signs are an integral part of the field assessment of patients. A two-part study was undertaken to determine which vital signs are taken in the field assessment of pediatric patients and to determine whether the frequency of vital signs taken is influenced by base station contact, patient's severity of illness or injury, or paramedic demographic factors such as parenting and field experience. An initial pilot study of prehospital care records (run sheets) from two base hospitals in Los Angeles County revealed that there were significant differences between field vital sign assessment in pediatric and adult patients (P less than .0001). ⋯ Vital signs often were not assessed in children less than 2 years old, even if the patient's chief complaint suggested the possibility of a major illness or trauma. The second part of the study was a field assessment survey that was distributed to 1,253 active paramedics in Los Angeles County; the results showed that paramedics were less confident in their ability to assess vital signs in children less than 2 years old. Confidence increased with age of the patient.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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Emerg. Med. Clin. North Am. · Feb 1990
ReviewMass casualty incident. Integration with prehospital care.
Mass casualty incident involves the use of limited resources for multiple casualties. The emergency physician must be familiar with both prehospital and hospital plans for mass casualty care in order to facilitate optimal care and to maintain the continuum from field care to definitive treatment. ⋯ Emergency physicians involved in prehospital care should be certain that the local EMS system has adequate training and chances to update their skills and knowledge. Disaster drills of the EMS system are excellent ways to practice, to identify weaknesses, and for preplanning to enhance disaster medical care.
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The injuries likely to occur during a future general war will differ in severity and number from those experienced during recent short campaigns, terrorist incidents and natural disasters. If general war should break out in Europe, casualty numbers will lean towards the First World War rather than the Second in scale. Medical assets can expect, at least temporarily, to be overwhelmed with casualties. ⋯ Sorting will be achieved by the application of a crude scoring system known as Military Triage. We examine this concept and discuss its likely effectiveness in a scenario characterised by limited medical resources and a high flow of casualties. With the widespread introduction of modern and complex injury severity scoring systems into civilian trauma practice it is timely to examine their potential role in augmenting or replacing the current Military Triage system.
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In the development of triage and bypass protocols, many different scoring systems and triage criteria are being used. Our purpose was to evaluate the Revised Trauma Index (RTI) as a triage tool for both its severity prediction ability and triage accuracy. A total of 2,340 trauma admissions were evaluated using the RTI and the Injury Severity Score (ISS). ⋯ There is 5% death rate at an RTI level of 15, which yields a 5% undertriage rate for death and a 37.3% overtriage rate for predicting an ISS greater than 15. This compares to under and overtriage rates for the Trauma Score, CRAMS, Pre-Hospital Index, and Mechanism of Injury scales varying from 19% to 56% undertriage and 7% to 82% overtriage. We reached the following conclusions. a) The RTI is a simple, fast triage tool for predicting major trauma. b) The RTI is related to the ultimate ISS. c) Use of an RTI greater than or equal to 15 results in an acceptable undertriage rate, with a better rate for overtriage than existing scores. d) Therefore, we recommend the RTI for use in emergency medical direction and bypass protocols.
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Following a large earthquake in Nepal, the experience of a small hospital in dealing with the resulting mass casualties is described. The value of pre-planning and effective triage of the injured is stressed, and aspects of surgical and medical care specific to earthquake victims discussed. Clinical and administrative challenges encountered in mounting a major relief exercise in a Third World setting are also described. frequent exercising of military hospitals and personnel in handling mass casualties is an applicable to civilian natural catastrophies as to battlefield medical support.