Predicting drowning from sea and weather forecasts: development and validation of a model on surf beaches of southwestern France.

OBJECTIVE: To predict the coast-wide risk of drowning along the surf beaches of Gironde, southwestern France. METHODS: Data on rescues and drownings were collected from the Medical Emergency Center of Gironde (SAMU 33). Seasonality, holidays, weekends, weather and metocean conditions were considered potentially predictive. Logistic regression models were fitted with data from 2011 to 2013 and used to predict 2015-2017 events employing weather and ocean forecasts. RESULTS: Air temperature, wave parameters, seasonality and holidays were associated with drownings. Prospective validation was performed on 617 days, covering 232 events (rescues and drownings) reported on 104 different days. The area under the curve (AUC) of the daily risk prediction model (combined with 3-day forecasts) was 0.82 (95% CI 0.79 to 0.86). The AUC of the 3-hour step model was 0.85 (95% CI 0.81 to 0.88). CONCLUSIONS: Drowning events along the Gironde surf coast can be anticipated up to 3 days in advance. Preventative messages and rescue preparations could be increased as the forecast risk increased, especially during the off-peak season, when the number of available rescuers is low.

Comparison of two infant cardiopulmonary resuscitation techniques explained by phone in a non-health professionals' population: Two-thumbs encircling hand technique vs. two-fingers technique, a randomised crossover study in a simulation environment.

BACKGROUND: Paediatric out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is the reason for an emergency call in approximately 8/100,000 person-years. Improvement of OHCA resuscitation needs a quality chain of survival and a rapid start of resuscitation. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of two resuscitation techniques provided on a mannequin, the two-fingers technique (TFT) and the two-thumbs encircling hand technique (TTHT), explained by a trained emergency call responder on the phone in a population of non-health professionals. METHODS: We conducted a randomised crossover study in the simulation lab of a University Hospital. The participants included in the study were non-health professional volunteers of legal age. The participants were assigned (1:1 ratio) to two groups: group A: TFT then TTHT, group B: TTHT then TFT. Scenario and techniques were discovered during the evaluation. RESULTS: Thirty-five volunteers were randomised before the sessions and 33 ultimately came to the simulation lab. We found a better median QCPR global score during TTHT sessions than during TFT sessions (74 vs. 59, P = 0.046). Linear mixed models showed that the TTHT method was the only variable associated with a better QCPR global score [model 1: ß = 14.3; 95% confidence interval (CI), 2.4-26.2; model 2: ß = 14.5; 95% CI, 2.5-26.6]. CONCLUSION: Our study showed the superiority of TTHT for infant CPR performed by non-health professionals when an emergency call responder advised them over the phone. It seemed to be the best technique for a solo rescuer regardless of previous training.

Assessment of the SpO2/FiO2 ratio as a tool for hypoxemia screening in the emergency department.

OBJECTIVE: We assessed the performance of the ratio of peripheral arterial oxygen saturation to the inspired fraction of oxygen (SpO2/FiO2) to predict the ratio of partial pressure arterial oxygen to the fraction of inspired oxygen (PaO2/FiO2) among patients admitted to our emergency department (ED) during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. METHODS: We retrospectively studied patients admitted to an academic-level ED in France who were undergoing a joint measurement of SpO2 and arterial blood gas. We compared SpO2 with SaO2 and evaluated performance of the SpO2/FiO2 ratio for the prediction of 300 and 400 mmHg PaO2/FiO2 cut-off values in COVID-19 positive and negative subgroups using receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves. RESULTS: During the study period from February to April 2020, a total of 430 arterial samples were analyzed and collected from 395 patients. The area under the ROC curves of the SpO2/FiO2 ratio was 0.918 (CI 95% 0.885-0.950) and 0.901 (CI 95% 0.872-0.930) for PaO2/FiO2 thresholds of 300 and 400 mmHg, respectively. The positive predictive value (PPV) of an SpO2/FiO2 threshold of 350 for PaO2/FiO2 inferior to 300 mmHg was 0.88 (CI95% 0.84-0.91), whereas the negative predictive value (NPV) of the SpO2/FiO2 threshold of 470 for PaO2/FiO2 inferior to 400 mmHg was 0.89 (CI95% 0.75-0.96). No significant differences were found between the subgroups. CONCLUSIONS: The SpO2/FiO2 ratio may be a reliable tool for hypoxemia screening among patients admitted to the ED, particularly during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.

Outcome of older persons admitted to intensive care unit, mortality, prognosis factors, dependency scores and ability trajectory within 1 year: a prospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: The outcome and functional trajectory of older persons admitted to intensive care (ICU) unit remain a true question for critical care physicians and geriatricians, due to the heterogeneity of geriatric population, heterogeneity of practices and absence of guidelines. AIM: To describe the 1-year outcome, prognosis factors and functional trajectory for older people admitted to ICU. METHODS: In a prospective 1-year cohort study, all patients aged 75 years and over admitted to our ICU were included according to a global comprehensive geriatric assessment. Follow-up was conducted for 1 year survivors, in particular, ability scores and living conditions. RESULTS: Of 188 patients included [aged 82.3 ± 4.7 years, 46% of admissions, median SAPS II 53.5 (43-74), ADL of Katz's score 4.2 ± 1.6, median Barthel's index 71 (55-90), AGGIR scale 4.5 ± 1.5], the ICU, hospital and 1-year mortality were, respectively, 34, 42.5 and 65.5%. Prognosis factors were: SAPS 2, mechanical ventilation, comorbidity (Lee's and Mc Cabe's scores), disability scores (ADL of Katz's score, Barthel's index and AGGIR scale), admission creatinin, hypoalbuminemia, malignant haemopathy, cognitive impairment. One-year survivors lived in their own home for 83%, with a preserved physical ability, without significant variation of the three ability assessed scores compared to prior ICU admission. CONCLUSION: The mortality of older people admitted to ICU is high, with a significant impact of disabilty scores, and preserved 1-year survivor independency. Other studies, including a better comprehensive geriatric assessment, seem necessary to determine a predictive "phenotype" of survival with a "satisfactory" level of autonomy.

Deep Learning Transformer Models for Building a Comprehensive and Real-time Trauma Observatory: Development and Validation Study.

BACKGROUND: Public health surveillance relies on the collection of data, often in near-real time. Recent advances in natural language processing make it possible to envisage an automated system for extracting information from electronic health records. OBJECTIVE: To study the feasibility of setting up a national trauma observatory in France, we compared the performance of several automatic language processing methods in a multiclass classification task of unstructured clinical notes. METHODS: A total of 69,110 free-text clinical notes related to visits to the emergency departments of the University Hospital of Bordeaux, France, between 2012 and 2019 were manually annotated. Among these clinical notes, 32.5% (22,481/69,110) were traumas. We trained 4 transformer models (deep learning models that encompass attention mechanism) and compared them with the term frequency-inverse document frequency associated with the support vector machine method. RESULTS: The transformer models consistently performed better than the term frequency-inverse document frequency and a support vector machine. Among the transformers, the GPTanam model pretrained with a French corpus with an additional autosupervised learning step on 306,368 unlabeled clinical notes showed the best performance with a micro F1-score of 0.969. CONCLUSIONS: The transformers proved efficient at the multiclass classification of narrative and medical data. Further steps for improvement should focus on the expansion of abbreviations and multioutput multiclass classification.

Surveillance of COVID-19 using a keyword search for symptoms in reports from emergency medical communication centers in Gironde, France: a 15 year retrospective cross-sectional study.

During periods such as the COVID-19 crisis, there is a need for responsive public health surveillance indicators related to the epidemic. To determine the performance of keyword-search algorithm in call reports to emergency medical communication centers (EMCC) to describe trends in symptoms during the COVID-19 crisis. We retrospectively retrieved all free text call reports from the EMCC of the Gironde department (SAMU 33), France, between 2005 and 2020 and classified them with a simple keyword-based algorithm to identify symptoms relevant to COVID-19. A validation was performed using a sample of manually coded call reports. The six selected symptoms were fever, cough, muscle soreness, dyspnea, ageusia and anosmia. We retrieved 38,08,243 call reports from January 2005 to October 2020. A total of 8539 reports were manually coded for validation and Cohen's kappa statistics ranged from 75 (keyword anosmia) to 59% (keyword dyspnea). There was an unprecedented peak in the number of daily calls mentioning fever, cough, muscle soreness, anosmia, ageusia, and dyspnea during the COVID-19 epidemic, compared to the past 15 years. Calls mentioning cough, fever and muscle soreness began to increase from February 21, 2020. The number of daily calls reporting cough reached 208 on March 3, 2020, a level higher than any in the previous 15 years, and peaked on March 15, 2020, 2 days before lockdown. Calls referring to dyspnea, anosmia and ageusia peaked 12 days later and were concomitant with the daily number of emergency room admissions. Trends in symptoms cited in calls to EMCC during the COVID-19 crisis provide insights into the natural history of COVID-19. The content of calls to EMCC is an efficient epidemiological surveillance data source and should be integrated into the national surveillance system.

Trends in reasons for emergency calls during the COVID-19 crisis in the department of Gironde, France using artificial neural network for natural language classification.

OBJECTIVES: During periods such as the COVID-19 crisis, there is a need for responsive public health surveillance indicators in order to monitor both the epidemic growth and potential public health consequences of preventative measures such as lockdown. We assessed whether the automatic classification of the content of calls to emergency medical communication centers could provide relevant and responsive indicators. METHODS: We retrieved all 796,209 free-text call reports from the emergency medical communication center of the Gironde department, France, between 2018 and 2020. We trained a natural language processing neural network model with a mixed unsupervised/supervised method to classify all reasons for calls in 2020. Validation and parameter adjustment were performed using a sample of 39,907 manually-coded free-text reports. RESULTS: The number of daily calls for flu-like symptoms began to increase from February 21, 2020 and reached an unprecedented level by February 28, 2020 and peaked on March 14, 2020, 3 days before lockdown. It was strongly correlated with daily emergency room admissions, with a delay of 14 days. Calls for chest pain and stress and anxiety, peaked 12 days later. Calls for malaises with loss of consciousness, non-voluntary injuries and alcohol intoxications sharply decreased, starting one month before lockdown. No noticeable trends in relation to lockdown was found for other groups of reasons including gastroenteritis and abdominal pain, stroke, suicide and self-harm, pregnancy and delivery problems. DISCUSSION: The first wave of the COVID-19 crisis came along with increased levels of stress and anxiety but no increase in alcohol intoxication and violence. As expected, call related to road traffic crashes sharply decreased. The sharp decrease in the number of calls for malaise was more surprising. CONCLUSION: The content of calls to emergency medical communication centers is an efficient epidemiological surveillance data source that provides insights into the societal upheavals induced by a health crisis. The use of an automatic classification system using artificial intelligence makes it possible to free itself from the context that could influence a human coder, especially in a crisis situation. The COVID-19 crisis and/or lockdown induced deep modifications in the population health profile.

Stress and lasting symptoms following injury: Results from a 4-month cohort of trauma patients recruited at the emergency department.

INTRODUCTION: Recent research suggests that up to 20% of minor trauma patients admitted to the emergency department (ED) will suffer from non-specific chronic conditions over the subsequent several months. Thus, the present study assessed the correlates of symptoms that persisted at 4 months after an ED visit and, in particular, evaluated the associations between these symptoms and self-reported stress levels at ED admission and discharge. METHOD: This study was a prospective observational investigation conducted in the ED of Bordeaux University Hospital that included patients admitted for minor trauma. All participants were contacted by phone 4 months after presentation at the ED to assess the occurrence of post-concussion-like symptoms (PCLS). RESULTS: A total of 193 patients completed the follow-up assessment at 4 months; 5.2% of the participants suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and 24.5% suffered from PCLS. A multivariate analysis revealed an association between PCLS and stress level at discharge from the ED (odds ratios [OR]: 2.85, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.10-7.40). CONCLUSIONS: The risk of PCLS at 4 months after an ED visit for a minor injury increased in association with the level of stress at discharge from the ED. These results may improve the quality of life for the millions of patients who experience a stressful injury event every year.

Characteristics of drowning victims in a surf environment: a 6-year retrospective study in southwestern France.

BACKGROUND: Drowning is the third cause of non-intentional injury death worldwide. Beaches of Gironde, in southwestern France, are exposed to strong environmental conditions, leading to rip currents and shore breaks. Bathing season usually lasts from April to October and is supervised from June till mid-September. The objective of this study was to study the characteristics of drowning victims along Gironde surf beaches and to identify peculiarities compared to national figures. METHODS: All calls originating from beaches to the emergency call center of Gironde from 2011 to 2016 were analyzed. Patient data, filled by a physician based on information given by pre-hospital care team (lifeguards, paramedics or emergency physicians), were extracted from the emergency call center database. We used Szpilman classification (0 = rescue to 6 = cardiac arrest) to assess severity. Rescues are patients without respiratory impairment who needed lifeguards or helicopter intervention. We compared our findings with national studies carried every three years (2012 and 2015). RESULTS: We analyzed 5680 calls from beaches and included 4398, 576 of which were rescued from the water, including 352 without respiratory impairment (stage 0). Among drownings, 155 had cough only (stage 1), 26 pulmonary rales (stage 2), 9 pulmonary edema (stage 3) and 1 had pulmonary edema with hypotension (stage 4). Five rescued people were in respiratory arrest and 28 were in cardiac arrest. 77.5% were bathers, others were mainly surfers or body-boarders. Drowning victims median age was 24 (quartiles: 17-40), and sex-ratio was 1.44 Male/Female. Men were significantly older than women (34 vs. 26 years old), and severity from stage 1 to 4 was positively associated with age. Compared to national data, Gironde drownings had a higher proportion of 15-44 year-old victims, and the case-fatality was lower in Gironde (11.5%) than at the national level (27.4%, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Along Gironde coast, drowning is rarely severe, concerns mostly young men; the age distribution could explain the different case-fatality. Further study is needed to identify environmental predictors of drowning.