Articles

Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta (REBOA): update and insights into current practices and future directions for research and implementation

In this review, we assess the state of Resuscitative Endovascular Occlusion of the Aorta (REBOA) today with respect to out-of-hospital (OOH) vs. inhospital (H) use in blunt and penetrating trauma, as well as d...

Authors: Marianne A. Thrailkill, Kevin H. Gladin, Catherine R. Thorpe, Teryn R. Roberts, Jae H. Choi, Kevin K. Chung, Corina N. Necsoiu, Todd E. Rasmussen, Leopoldo C. Cancio and Andriy I. Batchinsky

Prehospital identification of Covid-19: an observational study

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic has affected prehospital care systems across the world, but the prehospital presentation of affected patients and the extent to which prehospital care pro...

Authors: Douglas Spangler, Hans Blomberg and David Smekal

Assessment of changes in cardiopulmonary resuscitation practices and outcomes on 1005 victims of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest during the COVID-19 outbreak: registry-based study

The COVID-19 outbreak requires a permanent adaptation of practices. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is also involved and we evaluated these changes in the management of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA).

Authors: Valentine Baert, Deborah Jaeger, Hervé Hubert, Jean-Baptiste Lascarrou, Guillaume Debaty, Tahar Chouihed and François Javaudin

A conceptual framework for Emergency department design in a pandemic

The current COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting gaps around the world in the design and workflow of Emergency Departments (ED). These gaps have an impact on both patient care and staff safety and represent a ris...

Authors: Gayathri Devi Nadarajan, Eunizar Omar, Benjamin S. Abella, Pei Shan Hoe, Sang Do Shin, Matthew Huei-Ming Ma and Marcus Eng Hock Ong

Multiple trauma management in mountain environments - a scoping review

Multiple trauma in mountain environments may be associated with increased morbidity and mortality compared to urban environments.

Authors: G. Sumann, D. Moens, B. Brink, M. Brodmann Maeder, M. Greene, M. Jacob, P. Koirala, K. Zafren, M. Ayala, M. Musi, K. Oshiro, A. Sheets, G. Strapazzon, D. Macias and P. Paal

Endotracheal intubation to reduce aspiration events in acutely comatose patients: a systematic review

It is customary to believe that a patient with a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score less than or equal to 8 should be intubated to avoid aspiration. We conducted a systematic review to establish if patients with G...

Authors: Daniele Orso, Luigi Vetrugno, Nicola Federici, Natascia D’Andrea and Tiziana Bove

Major incident preparedness: a curriculum and workplace necessity

Major incidents are defined as: An event or situation with a range of serious consequences, which require special arrangements to be implemented by one, or more emergency responder agency. The ability for a he...

Authors: Dominic Hampson

The effect of national lockdown due to COVID-19 on emergency department visits

COVID-19 outbreak lead to nationwide lockdown in Finland on the March 16th, 2020. Previous data regarding to the patient load in the emergency departments during pandemics is scarce. Our aim is to describe the...

Authors: Ilari Kuitunen, Ville T. Ponkilainen, Antti P. Launonen, Aleksi Reito, Teemu P. Hevonkorpi, Juha Paloneva and Ville M. Mattila

Development of machine learning models to predict RT-PCR results for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in patients with influenza-like symptoms using only basic clinical data

Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) diagnosis currently requires quite a long time span. A quicker and more efficient diagn...

Authors: Thomas Langer, Martina Favarato, Riccardo Giudici, Gabriele Bassi, Roberta Garberi, Fabiana Villa, Hedwige Gay, Anna Zeduri, Sara Bragagnolo, Alberto Molteni, Andrea Beretta, Matteo Corradin, Mauro Moreno, Chiara Vismara, Carlo Federico Perno, Massimo Buscema…

Mechanical ventilation of patients in helicopter emergency medical service transport: an international survey

Mechanical ventilation in helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) environments is a procedure which carries a significant risk of complications. Limited data on the quality and performance of mechanical ve...

Authors: Peter Hilbert-Carius, Manuel F. Struck, Veronika Hofer, Jochen Hinkelbein, Leif Rognås, Jörn Adler, Michael D. Christian, Thomas Wurmb, Michael Bernhard and Björn Hossfeld

The use of HEAVEN criteria to predict difficult laryngeal view and intubation failure with direct and video laryngoscopy

Authors: Ryan D. Henschell and Paul K. Miller

How should nonspecific complaints be defined? Comment to: “nonspecific complaints (NSCs) in the emergency department”

Authors: Roland Bingisser and Christian H. Nickel

ILCOR’s revised Covid-19 defibrillation recommendation requires a new approach to training

In-hospital resuscitation practices have changed by necessity in the Covid-19 era, principally due to precautions intended to protect caregivers from infection. This has resulted in serious delays in resuscita...

Authors: John A. Stewart

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) during spaceflight - a guideline for CPR in microgravity from the German Society of Aerospace Medicine (DGLRM) and the European Society of Aerospace Medicine Space Medicine Group (ESAM-SMG)

With the “Artemis”-mission mankind will return to the Moon by 2024. Prolonged periods in space will not only present physical and psychological challenges to the astronauts, but also pose risks concerning the ...

Authors: Jochen Hinkelbein, Steffen Kerkhoff, Christoph Adler, Anton Ahlbäck, Stefan Braunecker, Daniel Burgard, Fabrizio Cirillo, Edoardo De Robertis, Eckard Glaser, Theresa K. Haidl, Pete Hodkinson, Ivan Zefiro Iovino, Stefanie Jansen, Kolaparambil Varghese Lydia Johnson, Saskia Jünger, Matthieu Komorowski…

Emergency department crowding and hospital transformation during COVID-19, a retrospective, descriptive study of a university hospital in Stockholm, Sweden

COVID-19 presents challenges to the emergency care system that could lead to emergency department (ED) crowding. The Huddinge site at the Karolinska university hospital (KH) responded through a rapid transform...

Authors: Björn af Ugglas, Niclas Skyttberg, Andreas Wladis, Therese Djärv and Martin J. Holzmann

Exploiting an early warning Nomogram for predicting the risk of ICU admission in patients with COVID-19: a multi-center study in China

Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global public health emergency. Here, we developed and validated a practical model based on the data from a multi-center cohort in China for early identification ...

Authors: Yiwu Zhou, Yanqi He, Huan Yang, He Yu, Ting Wang, Zhu Chen, Rong Yao and Zongan Liang

Correction to: Is prehospital use of active external warming dangerous for patients with accidental hypothermia: a systematic review

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Authors: Sigurd Mydske and Øyvind Thomassen

Resilience in a prehospital setting - a new focus for future research?

Handling and initiating of treatment in a prehospital setting are complex processes that involve many treatment options and include several parts of the chain of survival. Capacity to adapt to unexpected chang...

Authors: Elisabeth Jeppesen and Siri Wiig

Description of Emergency Medical Services, treatment of cardiac arrest patients and cardiac arrest registries in Europe

Variation in the incidence, survival rate and factors associated with survival after cardiac arrest in Europe is reported. Some studies have tried to fill the knowledge gap regarding the epidemiology of out-of...

Authors: Ingvild B. M. Tjelmeland, Siobhan Masterson, Johan Herlitz, Jan Wnent, Leo Bossaert, Fernando Rosell-Ortiz, Kristin Alm-Kruse, Berthold Bein, Gisela Lilja and Jan-Thorsten Gräsner

Can non-physician advanced retrieval practitioners (ARP) acquire and interpret diagnostic views of the lungs with sufficient quality to aid in the diagnosis of pneumothorax in the pre-hospital and retrieval environment?

As an adjunct to physical examination, ultrasound is a potentially attractive option for diagnosing pneumothoraces in the pre-hospital and retrieval environment – and could confer a benefit to patient safety. ...

Authors: James Ronaldson, Christopher E. J. Moultrie, Alasdair R. Corfield and Evelyn McElhinney

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients with an initial non-shockable rhythm could be candidates for extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation: a retrospective study

Extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) is a promising treatment for refractory out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Most studies evaluating the effectiveness of ECPR include patients with an ini...

Authors: Atsunori Tanimoto, Kazuhiro Sugiyama, Maki Tanabe, Kanta Kitagawa, Ayumi Kawakami and Yuichi Hamabe

Mortality and quality of care in Nordic physician-staffed emergency medical services

Quality indicators (QI) for physician staffed emergency medical services (P-EMS) are necessary to improve service quality. Mortality can be considered the ultimate outcome QI. The process quality of care in P-...

Authors: Helge Haugland, Anna Olkinuora, Leif Rognås, David Ohlén and Andreas Krüger

Oxygenation strategies prior to and during prehospital emergency anaesthesia in UK HEMS practice (PREOXY survey)

Maintaining effective oxygenation throughout the process of Pre-Hospital Emergency Anaesthesia (PHEA) is critical. There are multiple strategies available to clinicians to oxygenate patients both prior to and ...

Authors: Adam J. Boulton, Amar Mashru and Richard Lyon

Artificial intelligence algorithm for predicting cardiac arrest using electrocardiography

In-hospital cardiac arrest is a major burden in health care. Although several track-and-trigger systems are used to predict cardiac arrest, they often have unsatisfactory performances. We hypothesized that a d...

Authors: Joon-myoung Kwon, Kyung-Hee Kim, Ki-Hyun Jeon, Soo Youn Lee, Jinsik Park and Byung-Hee Oh

Burn care: before the burn center

Authors: David J. Dries

Establishment of an extracorporeal cardio-pulmonary resuscitation program in Berlin – outcomes of 254 patients with refractory circulatory arrest

Optimal management of out of hospital circulatory arrest (OHCA) remains challenging, in particular in patients who do not develop rapid return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC). Extracorporeal cardiopulmonary ...

Authors: Jens Nee, Roland Koerner, Daniel Zickler, Tim Schroeder, Philipp Enghard, Lutz Nibbe, Dietrich Hasper, Robert Buder, Christoph Leithner, Christoph J. Ploner, Kai-Uwe Eckardt, Christian Storm and Jan M. Kruse

Prediction of mortality in critically-ill elderly trauma patients: a single centre retrospective observational study and comparison of the performance of trauma scores

Trauma in the elderly (≥ 65 years) population is increasing. This study compares the performance of trauma scoring systems in predicting 30-day mortality among the traumatised elderly patients admitted to the ...

Authors: Rebecca Egglestone, David Sparkes and Ahilanandan Dushianthan

Pre-hospital care & interfacility transport of 385 COVID-19 emergency patients: an air ambulance perspective

COVID-19, the pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2, is challenging healthcare systems worldwide. Little is known about problems faced by emergency medical services—particularl...

Authors: Peter Hilbert-Carius, Jörg Braun, Fikri Abu-Zidan, Jörn Adler, Jürgen Knapp, Didier Dandrifosse, Désirée Braun, Urs Pietsch, Patrick Adamczuk, Leif Rognås and Roland Albrecht

Real-time AI prediction for major adverse cardiac events in emergency department patients with chest pain

A big-data-driven and artificial intelligence (AI) with machine learning (ML) approach has never been integrated with the hospital information system (HIS) for predicting major adverse cardiac events (MACE) in...

Authors: Pei-I Zhang, Chien-Chin Hsu, Yuan Kao, Chia-Jung Chen, Ya-Wei Kuo, Shu-Lien Hsu, Tzu-Lan Liu, Hung-Jung Lin, Jhi-Joung Wang, Chung-Feng Liu and Chien-Cheng Huang

Massive hemothorax due to bleeding from thoracic spinal fractures: a case series and systematic review

Massive hemothorax secondary to thoracic spinal fractures is rare, and its clinical characteristics, treatment, and prognosis are unknown. We present two cases of thoracic spinal fracture-induced massive hemot...

Authors: Kohei Ninomiya, Akira Kuriyama and Hayaki Uchino

Consistency and variability in human performance during simulate infant CPR: a reliability study

Positive outcomes from infant cardiac arrest depend on the effective delivery of resuscitation techniques, including good quality infant cardiopulmonary resuscitation (iCPR) However, it has been established th...

Authors: Debora Almeida, Carol Clark, Michael Jones, Phillip McConnell and Jonathan Williams

Evolution and current state of global research on paediatric resuscitation: a systematic scientometric analysis

Paediatric resuscitation is rare but potentially associated with maximal lifetime reduction. Notably, several nations experience high infant mortality rates even today. To improve clinical outcomes and promote...

Authors: Sean S. Scholz, Rainer Borgstedt, Leoni C. Menzel, Sebastian Rehberg and Gerrit Jansen

Intubation during a medevac flight: safety and effect on total prehospital time in the helicopter emergency medical service system

The Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) commonly intubates patients who require advanced airway support prior to takeoff. In-flight intubation (IFI) is avoided because it is considered difficult due to...

Authors: Hiroki Maeyama, Hiromichi Naito, Francis X. Guyette, Takashi Yorifuji, Yuki Banshotani, Daisaku Matsui, Tetsuya Yumoto, Atsunori Nakao and Makoto Kobayashi

High HbA1c is associated with decreased 6-month survival and poor outcomes after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: a retrospective cohort study

To evaluate the associations between glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) at admission and 6-month mortality and outcomes after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) treated by hypothermic targeted temperature manageme...

Authors: Junhaeng Lee, Joo Suk Oh, Jong Ho Zhu, Sungyoup Hong, Sang Hyun Park, Ji Hoon Kim, Hyungsoo Kim, Mingu Seo, Kiwook Kim, Doo Hyo Lee, Hyun Ho Jung, Jungtaek Park, Young Min Oh, Semin Choi and Kyoung Ho Choi

Cutaneous impact location: a new tool to predict intracranial lesion among the elderly with mild traumatic brain injury?

Mild traumatic brain injury is the leading cause of arrivals to emergency department due to trauma in the 65-year-old population and over. Recent studies conducted in ED suggested a low intracranial lesion pre...

Authors: Xavier Dubucs, Frederic Balen, Eric Schmidt, Mathieu Houles, Sandrine Charpentier, Charles-Henri Houze-Cerfon and Dominique Lauque

Residents working with Médecins Sans Frontières: training and pilot evaluation

Well-prepared humanitarian workers are now more necessary than ever. Essential to the preparation process are: clearly defined learning objectives, curricula tailored to the nuances of humanitarian settings, s...

Authors: Alba Ripoll-Gallardo, Luca Ragazzoni, Ettore Mazzanti, Grazia Meneghetti, Jeffrey Michael Franc, Alessandro Costa and Francesco della Corte

Pediatric hypothermic submersion incident – should we do chest compressions on a beating heart?

Drowning is the third leading cause of unintentional injury death worldwide, with the highest rates of fatality among young children. To decide how to treat these patients prehospitally could be challenging in...

Authors: Steinar Einvik, Andreas Jorstad Kruger and Sven Erik Gisvold

Prehospital management of burns requiring specialized burn centre evaluation: a single physician-based emergency medical service experience

Emergency medical services regularly encounter severe burns. As standards of care are relatively well-established regarding their hospital management, prehospital care is comparatively poorly defined. The aim ...

Authors: Ludovic Maudet, Mathieu Pasquier, Olivier Pantet, Roland Albrecht and Pierre-Nicolas Carron

Validation of a point-of-care capillary lactate measuring device (Lactate Pro 2)

The measurement of lactate in emergency medical services has the potential for earlier detection of shock and can be performed with a point-of-care handheld device. Validation of a point-of-care handheld devic...

Authors: Anette Raa, Geir Arne Sunde, Bjørn Bolann, Reidar Kvåle, Christopher Bjerkvig, Håkon S. Eliassen, Tore Wentzel-Larsen and Jon-Kenneth Heltne

Elevated admission lactate levels in the emergency department are associated with increased 30-day mortality in non-trauma critically ill patients

Elevated blood lactate levels were reported as useful predictors of clinical outcome and mortality in critically ill patients. To identify higher-risk patients, this investigation evaluated the relationship be...

Authors: Michael Bernhard, Stephanie Döll, Andre Kramer, Lorenz Weidhase, Thomas Hartwig, Sirak Petros and André Gries

Pre-hospital triage performance and emergency medical services nurse’s field assessment in an unselected patient population attended to by the emergency medical services: a prospective observational study

In Sweden, the rapid emergency triage and treatment system (RETTS-A) is used in the pre-hospital setting. With RETTS-A, patients triaged to the lowest level could safely be referred to a lower level of care. T...

Authors: Carl Magnusson, Johan Herlitz and Christer Axelsson

Impact of two-level filtering on emergency medical communication center triage during the COVID-19 pandemic: an uncontrolled before-after study

Rapid access to emergency medical communication centers (EMCCs) is pivotal to address potentially life-threatening conditions. Maintaining public access to EMCCs without delay is crucial in case of disease out...

Authors: Y. Penverne, B. Leclere, J. Labady, F. Berthier, J. Jenvrin, F. Javaudin and E. Montassier

Pre-hospital blood transfusion – an ESA survey of European practice

Blood products are a lifesaving commodity in the treatment of major trauma.

Authors: Karl-Christian Thies, Anatolij Truhlář, Damian Keene, Jochen Hinkelbein, Kurt Rützler, Luca Brazzi and Benoît Vivien

Difficulty of the ethical decision–making process in withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatments in French EDs during COVID pandemic

Authors: Marion Douplat, Laurent Jacquin, Soizic Frugier, Karim Tazarourte and Pierre Le Coz

Is prehospital use of active external warming dangerous for patients with accidental hypothermia: a systematic review

Optimal prehospital management and treatment of patients with accidental hypothermia is a matter of frequent debate, with controversies usually revolving around the subject of rewarming. The rule of thumb in p...

Authors: Sigurd Mydske and Øyvind Thomassen

Re-assessment of re-warming for out-of-hospital births

Therapeutic controlled cooling is routinely practiced on neonates with core temperatures of 33–34 °C attained during cooling for birth related hypoxic-ischaemia encephalopathy (HIE). Rewarming after therapeuti...

Authors: Peter Jones, Camille Joly and Benoît Vivien

Predictive accuracy of biomarkers for survival among cardiac arrest patients with hypothermia: a prospective observational cohort study in Japan

There is limited information on the predictive accuracy of commonly used predictors, such as lactate, pH or serum potassium for the survival among out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients with hypothermi...

Authors: Yohei Okada, Takeyuki Kiguchi, Taro Irisawa, Kazuhisa Yoshiya, Tomoki Yamada, Koichi Hayakawa, Kazuo Noguchi, Tetsuro Nishimura, Takuya Ishibe, Yoshiki Yagi, Masafumi Kishimoto, Hiroshi Shintani, Yasuyuki Hayashi, Taku Sogabe, Takaya Morooka, Haruko Sakamoto…

Serious conditions among patients with non-specific chief complaints in the pre-hospital setting: a retrospective cohort study

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) are faced daily with patients presenting with a non-specific chief complaints (NSC); i.e. decreased general condition, general malaise, sense of illness, or just being unable t...

Authors: Robert Ivic, Lisa Kurland, Veronica Vicente, Maaret Castrén and Katarina Bohm

Hospital incident command groups’ performance during major incident simulations: a prospective observational study

Hospital incident command groups’ (HICG) performance may have a profound impact on hospital response to major incidents. Previous research has assessed hospital incident command group capacity as opposed to pe...

Authors: Jason P. Murphy, Lisa Kurland, Monica Rådestad and Anders Rüter

Computer tomographic assessment of gastric volume in major trauma patients: impact of pre-hospital airway management on gastric air

Gastric dilation is frequently observed in trauma patients. However, little is known about average gastric volumes comprising food, fluids and air. Although literature suggests a relevant risk of gastric insuf...

Authors: Thomas Mitteregger, Philipp Schwaiger, Janett Kreutziger, Herbert Schöchl, Daniel Oberladstätter, Helmut Trimmel and Wolfgang G. Voelckel