INTRODUCTION Hypothermia is associated with increased morbidity and mortality in trauma patients and poses a challenge in pre-hospital treatment. The aim of this study was to identify equipment to prevent, diagnose, and treat hypothermia in Norwegian pre-hospital services. METHOD In the period of April-August 2011, we conducted a survey of 42 respondents representing a total of 543 pre-hospit...

OBJECTIVES This study was undertaken to assess concurrent mechanical stresses from shock, vibration, and noise to which a critically ill neonate is exposed during emergency transfer. METHODS For neonates transported by a French specialized emergency medical service, we measured and analyzed 27 physical parameters recorded during typical transport by ambulance and by helicopter. The noninvasiv...

Objectives: To identify those attributes experts regard as desirable qualities in the ambulance technician, paramedic, and clinical supervisor. Methods: The Delphi technique was used to gain a consensus view from a panel of experts. The first round of the study asked the experts to list the attributes they believed were desirable for the ambulance technician, the ambulance paramedic, and the cl...

OBJECTIVES To examine the consistency of triage outcomes by nurses using four types of computerised decision support software in NHS Direct. METHODS 119 scenarios were constructed based on calls to ambulance services that had been assigned the lowest priority category by the emergency medical dispatch systems in use. These scenarios were presented to nurses working in four NHS Direct call cen...

RATIONALE Stroke is a time-critical medical emergency requiring specialized treatment. Prehospital delay contributes significantly to delayed or missed treatment opportunities. In-ambulance telemedicine can bring stroke expertise to the prehospital arena and facilitate this complex diagnostic and therapeutic process. AIMS This study evaluates the efficacy, safety, feasibility, reliability and...

OBJECTIVES Ambulance workers are regularly exposed to call-outs, which are potentially psychologically traumatic. The ability to remain objective and make adaptive appraisals during call-outs may be beneficial to this at-risk population. This pilot study investigated the links between cognitive appraisals, objectivity and coping in ambulance workers. METHODS Forty-five ambulance workers from ...

INTRODUCTION Little is known regarding public opinion of prehospital care in Malaysia. This study was conducted to find out the public's perception and expectations of the ambulance services in one of the university hospitals in Malaysia. METHODS A six-month prospective cross-sectional study to look at patients' perception of Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia's (HUSM) ambulance service was c...

Current ambulance designs are ergonomically inefficient and often times unsafe for practical treatment response to medical emergencies. Thus, the patient compartment of a moving ambulance is a hazardous working environment. As a consequence, emergency medical services (EMS) workers suffer fatalities and injuries that far exceed those of the average work place in the United States. To reduce inj...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Timely referral of appropriate patients to acute stroke units is necessary for effective provision of skilled care. We compared the characteristics of referrals with suspected stroke to an academic acute stroke unit via 3 primary referral routes: ambulance paramedics using a rapid ambulance protocol and stroke recognition instrument, the Face Arm Speech Test; primary care...

Registered nurses (RNs) have, according to the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, the overall responsibility for the medical care in the ambulance care setting. Bringing RNs into the ambulance service are judged, according to earlier studies, to lead to a degree of professionalism with a higher quality of medical care. Implicitly in earlier studies, the work in the ambulance service ...