Rendezvous between ambulances and prehospital physicians in the Capital Region of Denmark: a descriptive study.

BACKGROUND: In a two-tier Emergency Medical Services response system with ambulances and physician-staffed rapid response vehicles, both units are ideally dispatched simultaneously when a physician is needed. However, when advanced resources are dispatched secondarily, a meeting point (rendezvous) is established to reduce time to advanced care. This study aims to assess the extent of rendezvous tasks, patient groups involved and physician contribution when rendezvous is activated between the primary ambulances and rapid response vehicles in the Capital Region of Denmark. METHODS: We analysed prehospital electronic patient record data from all rendezvous cases in the Capital Region of Denmark in 2018. Variables included the number of times rendezvous was activated, patient demographics, dispatch criteria, on-scene diagnosis, and prehospital treatment. RESULT: Ambulances requested rendezvous 2340 times, corresponding to 1.3% of all ambulance tasks and 10.7% of all rapid response vehicle dispatches. The most frequently used dispatch criterion was unclear problem n = 561 (28.8%), followed by cardiovascular n = 439 (22.5%) and neurological n = 392 (20.1%). The physician contributed with technical skills like medication n = 760 (39.0%) and advanced airway management n = 161 (8.3%), as well as non-technical skills like team leading during advanced life support n = 152 (7.8%) and decision to end futile treatment and death certificate issuance n = 73 (3.7%). CONCLUSION: Rendezvous between ambulances and physician-staffed rapid response vehicles was activated in 1.3% of all ambulance cases corresponding to 10.7% of all RRV dispatches in 2018. The three largest patient groups in rendezvous presented cardiovascular, neurological, and respiratory problems. The prehospital physician contributed with technical skills like medication and advanced airway management as well as non-technical skills like team leading during advanced life support and ending futile treatment. The high percentage of dispatch criterion unclear problem illustrates the challenge of precise dispatch and optimal use of prehospital resources. Therefore, it seems necessary to have a safe and rapid rendezvous procedure to cope with this uncertainty.

Helicopter emergency medical services missions to islands and the mainland during a 3-year period in Denmark: a population-based study on patient and sociodemographic characteristics, comorbidity, and use of healthcare services.

BACKGROUND: The Danish Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) is part of the Danish Emergency Medical Services System serving 5.7 million citizens with 1% living on islands not connected to the mainland by road. HEMS is dispatched based on pre-defined criteria including severity and urgency, and moreover to islands for less urgent cases, when rapid transport to further care is needed. The study aim was to characterize patient and sociodemographic factors, comorbidity and use of healthcare services for patients with HEMS missions to islands versus mainland. METHODS: Descriptive study of data from the HEMS database in a three-year period from 1 October 2014 to 30 September 2017. All missions in which a patient was either treated on scene or transported by HEMS were included. RESULTS: Of 5776 included HEMS missions, 1023 (17.7%) were island missions. In total, 90.2% of island missions resulted in patient transport by HEMS compared with 62.1% of missions to the mainland. Disease severity was serious or life-threatening in 34.7% of missions to islands compared with 65.1% of missions to mainland and less interventions were performed by HEMS on island missions. The disease pattern differed with more "Other diseases" registered on islands compared with the mainland where cardiovascular diseases and trauma were the leading causes of contact. Patients from islands were older than patients from the mainland. Sociodemographic characteristics varied between inhabiting island patients and mainland patients: more island patients lived alone, less were employed, more were retired, and more had low income. In addition, residing island patients had to a higher extend severe comorbidity and more contacts to general practitioners and hospitals compared with the mainland patients. CONCLUSIONS: HEMS missions to islands count for 17.7% of HEMS missions and 90.2% of island missions result in patient transport. The island patients encountered by HEMS are less severely diseased or injured and interventions are less frequently performed. Residing island patients are older than mainland patients and have lower socioeconomic position, more comorbidities and a higher use of health care services. Whether these socio-economic differences result in longer hospital stay or higher mortality is still to be investigated.

Higher resuscitation guideline adherence in paramedics with use of real-time ventilation feedback during simulated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A randomised controlled trial.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate whether real-time ventilation feedback would improve provider adherence to ventilation guidelines. DESIGN: Non-blinded randomised controlled simulation trial. SETTING: One Emergency Medical Service trust in Copenhagen. PARTICIPANTS: 32 ambulance crews consisting of 64 on-duty basic or advanced life support paramedics from Copenhagen Emergency Medical Service. INTERVENTION: Participant exposure to real-time ventilation feedback during simulated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome was ventilation quality, defined as ventilation guideline-adherence to ventilation rate (8-10 bpm) and tidal volume (500-600 ml) delivered simultaneously. RESULTS: The intervention group performed ventilations in adherence with ventilation guideline recommendations for 75.3% (Interquartile range (IQR) 66.2%-82.9%) of delivered ventilations, compared to 22.1% (IQR 0%-44.0%) provided by the control group. When controlling for participant covariates, adherence to ventilation guidelines was 44.7% higher in participants receiving ventilation feedback. Analysed separately, the intervention group performed a ventilation guideline-compliant rate in 97.4% (IQR 97.1%-100%) of delivered ventilations, versus 66.7% (IQR 40.9%-77.9%) for the control group. For tidal volume compliance, the intervention group reached 77.5% (IQR 64.9%-83.8%) of ventilations within target compared to 53.4% (IQR 8.4%-66.7%) delivered by the control group. CONCLUSIONS: Real-time ventilation feedback increased guideline compliance for both ventilation rate and tidal volume (combined and as individual parameters) in a simulated OHCA setting. Real-time feedback has the potential to improve manual ventilation quality and may allow providers to avoid harmful hyperventilation.

Effect of real-time and post-event feedback in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest attended by EMS - A systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVES: A systematic review to determine if cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) guided by either real-time or post-event feedback could improve CPR quality or patient outcome compared to unguided CPR in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). METHODS: Four databases were searched; PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library in August 2020 for post 2010 literature on OHCA in adults. Critical outcomes were chest compression depth, rate and fraction. Important outcomes were any return of spontaneous circulation, survival to hospital and survival to discharge. RESULTS: A total of 9464 studies were identified with 61 eligibility for full text screening. A total of eight studies was included in the meta-analysis. Five studies investigated real-time feedback and three investigated post-event feedback. Meta-analysis revealed that real-time feedback statistically improves compression depth and rate while post-event feedback improved depth and fraction. Feedback did not statistically improve patient outcome but an improvement in absolute numbers revealed a clinical effect of feedback. Heterogenity varied from "might not be important" to "considerable". CONCLUSION: To significantly improve CPR quality real-time and post-event feedback should be combined. Neither real-time nor post event feedback could statistically be associated with patient outcome however, a clinical effect was detected. The conclusions reached were based on few studies of low to very low quality. PROSPERO REGISTRATION: CRD42019133881.

Corrigendum to "Higher resuscitation guideline adherence in paramedics with use of real-time ventilation feedback during simulated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A randomised controlled trial" [Resuscitation Plus 5 (2021) 100082].

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.resplu.2021.100082.].

Characteristics of patients treated by the Danish Helicopter Emergency Medical Service from 2014-2018: a nationwide population-based study.

BACKGROUND: A national Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) was introduced in Denmark in 2014 to ensure the availability of physician-led critical care for all patients regardless of location. Appropriate dispatch of HEMS is known to be complex, and resource utilisation is a highly relevant topic. Population-based studies on patient characteristics are fundamental when evaluating and optimising a system. The aim of this study was to describe the patient population treated by the Danish HEMS in terms of demographics, pre-hospital diagnostics, severity of illness or injury, and the critical care interventions performed. METHOD: The study is a retrospective nationwide population-based study based on data gathered from the Danish HEMS database. We included primary missions resulting in a patient encounter registered between October 1st 2014 and April 30th 2018. RESULTS: Of 13.391 dispatches registered in the study period we included 7133 (53%) primary missions with patient encounter: 4639 patients were air lifted to hospital, 174 patients were escorted to hospital by the HEMS physician in an ambulance, and in 2320 cases HEMS assisted the ground crew on scene but did not escort the patient to hospital. Patient age ranged from 0-99 years and 64% of the population were men. The median age was 60 years. The main diagnostic groups were cardio-vascular emergencies (41%), trauma (23%) and neurological emergencies (16%). In 61% of the cases, the patient was critically ill/injured corresponding to a NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) score between 4 and 7 (both included). In more than one third of the missions a critical care intervention was performed. Ultrasound examination and endo-tracheal intubation were the critical care interventions most frequently performed (21% and 20%, respectively). CONCLUSION: The national Danish HEMS primarily attends severely ill or injured patients and often perform critical care interventions. In addition, the Danish HEMS provides rapid transport to highly specialised treatment for patients in the more rural parts of the country. Patients with cardio-vascular emergencies, trauma and neurological emergencies are among those patient groups most commonly seen. We conclude that the overall dispatch profile appears appropriate but emphasise that continuous development and refinement is essential.

New clinical guidelines on the spinal stabilisation of adult trauma patients - consensus and evidence based.

Traumatic spinal cord injury is a relatively rare injury in Denmark but may result in serious neurological consequences. For decades, prehospital spinal stabilisation with a rigid cervical collar and a hard backboard has been considered to be the most appropriate procedure to prevent secondary spinal cord injuries during patient transportation. However, the procedure has been questioned in recent years, due to the lack of high-quality studies supporting its efficacy. A national interdisciplinary task force was therefore established to provide updated clinical guidelines on prehospital procedures for spinal stabilisation of adult trauma patients in Denmark. The guidelines are based on a systematic review of the literature and grading of the evidence, in addition to a standardised consensus process.This process yielded five main recommendations:A strong recommendation against spinal stabilisation of patients with isolated penetrating trauma; a weak recommendation against the prehospital use of a rigid cervical collar and a hard backboard for ABCDE-stable patients; and a weak recommendation for the use of a vacuum mattress for patient transportation. Finally, our group recommends the use of our clinical algorithm to ensure good clinical practice.

The Danish helicopter emergency medical service database: high quality data with great potential.

BACKGROUND: The Danish Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) is part of the Danish pre-hospital response offering advanced patient care on scene and during rapid transport to definitive care. Monitoring HEMS performance and the quality of critical care has high national as well as international priority underlining the need for research in this field. The data quality of the Danish HEMS database is unknown. Furthermore, a set of quality indicators (QI) developed by an international collaboration group (EQUIPE) potentially for use in physician-staffed EMS, has recently been presented. The aim of the current study was to present the design and data quality of the Danish helicopter database, and to evaluate the coverage of available variables in the database according to the QIs proposed. METHOD: The study included all helicopter dispatches between October 1st 2014 and April 30th 2018. The database layout and data entering procedure, as well as the key variables and data completeness were described. Furthermore, missing data and misclassifications were addressed. Lastly, the 26 QIs proposed by the EQUIPE-collaboration were evaluated for coverage in the HEMS database. RESULTS: A total of 13,392 missions were included in the study. The database includes a broad spectrum of mission- and patient-specific data related to the pre-hospital pathway of acutely ill or injured patients in a national coverage. Missing data for the majority of variables is less than 6.5%. The percentage of completed report forms has increased over time and reached 99.9% in 2018. Misclassification were observed for 294 patients in the study period corresponding to 3,7%. Less than half of the QIs proposed by the EQUIPE-collaboration group were directly available from the database. CONCLUSIONS: Helicopter Emergency Medical Services in Denmark are a new and sparsely investigated health care provider. The database contains nearly all missions dispatched by the five regional Emergency Medical Dispatch Centres. Generally, the data quality is considered high with great potential for future research. Potential quality indicators as proposed by the EQUIPE-collaboration group could inspire the configuration and design of the next version of Hemsfile creating an even more solid basis for research and quality improvement.

Routine blood tests are associated with short term mortality and can improve emergency department triage: a cohort study of >12,000 patients.

BACKGROUND: Prioritization of acutely ill patients in the Emergency Department remains a challenge. We aimed to evaluate whether routine blood tests can predict mortality in unselected patients in an emergency department and to compare risk prediction with a formalized triage algorithm. METHODS: A prospective observational cohort study of 12,661 consecutive admissions to the Emergency Department of Nordsjælland University Hospital during two separate periods in 2010 (primary cohort, n = 6279) and 2013 (validation cohort, n = 6383). Patients were triaged in five categories by a formalized triage algorithm. All patients with a full routine biochemical screening (albumin, creatinine, c-reactive protein, haemoglobin, lactate dehydrogenase, leukocyte count, potassium, and sodium) taken at triage were included. Information about vital status was collected from the Danish Central Office of Civil registration. Multiple logistic regressions were used to predict 30-day mortality. Validation was performed by applying the regression models on the 2013 validation cohort. RESULTS: Thirty-day mortality was 5.3%. The routine blood tests had a significantly stronger discriminative value on 30-day mortality compared to the formalized triage (AUC 88.1 [85.7;90.5] vs. 63.4 [59.1;67.5], p < 0.01). Risk stratification by routine blood tests was able to identify a larger number of low risk patients (n = 2100, 30-day mortality 0.1% [95% CI 0.0;0.3%]) compared to formalized triage (n = 1591, 2.8% [95% CI 2.0;3.6%]), p < 0.01. CONCLUSIONS: Routine blood tests were strongly associated with 30-day mortality in acutely ill patients and discriminatory ability was significantly higher than with a formalized triage algorithm. Thus routine blood tests allowed an improved risk stratification of patients presenting in an emergency department.

Abnormal vital signs are strong predictors for intensive care unit admission and in-hospital mortality in adults triaged in the emergency department - a prospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Assessment and treatment of the acutely ill patient have improved by introducing systematic assessment and accelerated protocols for specific patient groups. Triage systems are widely used, but few studies have investigated the ability of the triage systems in predicting outcome in the unselected acute population. The aim of this study was to quantify the association between the main component of the Hillerød Acute Process Triage (HAPT) system and the outcome measures; Admission to Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and in-hospital mortality, and to identify the vital signs, scored and categorized at admission, that are most strongly associated with the outcome measures. METHODS: The HAPT system is a minor modification of the Swedish Adaptive Process Triage (ADAPT) and ranks patients into five level colour-coded triage categories. Each patient is assigned a triage category for the two main descriptors; vital signs, T(vitals), and presenting complaint, T(complaint). The more urgent of the two determines the final triage category, T(final). We retrieved 6279 unique adult patients admitted through the Emergency Department (ED) from the Acute Admission Database. We performed regression analysis to evaluate the association between the covariates and the outcome measures. RESULTS: The covariates, T(vitals), T(complaint) and T(final) were all significantly associated with ICU admission and in-hospital mortality, the odds increasing with the urgency of the triage category. The vital signs best predicting in-hospital mortality were saturation of peripheral oxygen (SpO(2)), respiratory rate (RR), systolic blood pressure (BP) and Glasgow Coma Score (GCS). Not only the type, but also the number of abnormal vital signs, were predictive for adverse outcome. The presenting complaints associated with the highest in-hospital mortality were 'dyspnoea' (11.5%) and 'altered level of consciousness' (10.6%). More than half of the patients had a T(complaint) more urgent than T(vitals), the opposite was true in just 6% of the patients. CONCLUSION: The HAPT system is valid in terms of predicting in-hospital mortality and ICU admission in the adult acute population. Abnormal vital signs are strongly associated with adverse outcome, while including the presenting complaint in the triage model may result in over-triage.

The formation and design of the 'Acute Admission Database'- a database including a prospective, observational cohort of 6279 patients triaged in the emergency department in a larger Danish hospital.

BACKGROUND: Management and care of the acutely ill patient has improved over the last years due to introduction of systematic assessment and accelerated treatment protocols. We have, however, sparse knowledge of the association between patient status at admission to hospital and patient outcome. A likely explanation is the difficulty in retrieving all relevant information from one database. The objective of this article was 1) to describe the formation and design of the 'Acute Admission Database', and 2) to characterize the cohort included. METHODS: All adult patients triaged at the Emergency Department at Hillerød Hospital and admitted either to the observationary unit or to a general ward in-hospital were prospectively included during a period of 22 weeks. The triage system used was a Danish adaptation of the Swedish triage system, ADAPT. Data from 3 different data sources was merged using a unique identifier, the Central Personal Registry number; 1) Data from patient admission; time and date, vital signs, presenting complaint and triage category, 2) Blood sample results taken at admission, including a venous acid-base status, and 3) Outcome measures, e.g. length of stay, admission to Intensive Care Unit, and mortality within 7 and 28 days after admission. RESULTS: In primary triage, patients were categorized as red (4.4%), orange (25.2%), yellow (38.7%) and green (31.7%). Abnormal vital signs were present at admission in 25% of the patients, most often temperature (10.5%), saturation of peripheral oxygen (9.2%), Glasgow Coma Score (6.6%) and respiratory rate (4.8%). A venous acid-base status was obtained in 43% of all patients. The majority (78%) had a pH within the normal range (7.35-7.45), 15% had acidosis (pH < 7.35) and 7% had alkalosis (pH > 7.45). Median length of stay was 2 days (range 1-123). The proportion of patients admitted to Intensive Care Unit was 1.6% (95% CI 1.2-2.0), 1.8% (95% CI 1.5-2.2) died within 7 days, and 4.2% (95% CI 3.7-4.7) died within 28 days after admission. CONCLUSIONS: Despite challenges of data registration, we succeeded in creating a database of adequate size and data quality. Future studies will focus on the association between patient status at admission and patient outcome, e.g. admission to Intensive Care Unit or in-hospital mortality.

Blood lactate as a predictor for in-hospital mortality in patients admitted acutely to hospital: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Using blood lactate monitoring for risk assessment in the critically ill patient remains controversial. Some of the discrepancy is due to uncertainty regarding the appropriate reference interval, and whether to perform a single lactate measurement as a screening method at admission to the hospital, or serial lactate measurements. Furthermore there is no consensus whether the sample should be drawn from arterial, peripheral venous, or capillary blood. The aim of this review was: 1) To examine whether blood lactate levels are predictive for in-hospital mortality in patients in the acute setting, i.e. patients assessed pre-hospitally, in the trauma centre, emergency department, or intensive care unit. 2) To examine the agreement between arterial, peripheral venous, and capillary blood lactate levels in patients in the acute setting. METHODS: We performed a systematic search using PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and CINAHL up to April 2011. 66 articles were considered potentially relevant and evaluated in full text, of these ultimately 33 articles were selected. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The literature reviewed supported blood lactate monitoring as being useful for risk assessment in patients admitted acutely to hospital, and especially the trend, achieved by serial lactate sampling, is valuable in predicting in-hospital mortality. All patients with a lactate at admission above 2.5 mM should be closely monitored for signs of deterioration, but patients with even lower lactate levels should be considered for serial lactate monitoring. The correlation between lactate levels in arterial and venous blood was found to be acceptable, and venous sampling should therefore be encouraged, as the risk and inconvenience for this procedure is minimal for the patient. The relevance of lactate guided therapy has to be supported by more studies.