Prehospital Protocols Reducing Long Spinal Board Use Are Not Associated with a Change in Incidence of Spinal Cord Injury.

Introduction: Many emergency medical services (EMS) agencies have de-emphasized or eliminated the use of long spinal boards (LSB) for patients with possible spinal injury. We sought to determine if implementation of spinal motion restriction (SMR) protocols, which reduce LSB use, was associated with an increase in spinal cord injury (SCI). Methods: This retrospective observational study includes EMS encounters from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2015 submitted by SMR-adopting ground-based agencies to a state EMS database with hospital discharge data. Encounters were excluded if SMR implementation date was unknown, occurred during a 3-month run-in period, or were duplicates. Study samples include patients with traumatic injury (TI), possible spinal trauma (P-ST), and verified spinal trauma (V-ST) using hospital discharge ICD-9/10 diagnosis codes. The incidence of SCI before and after implementation of SMR was compared using Chi-squared and logistic regression. Results: From 1,005,978 linked encounters, 104,315 unique encounters with traumatic injury and known SMR implementation date were identified with 51,199 cases of P-ST and 5,178 V-ST cases. The incidence of SCI in the pre-SMR and post-SMR interval for each group was: TI, 0.20% vs. 0.22% (p = 0.390); P-ST, 0.40% vs. 0.45% (p = 0.436); and V-ST, 4.04% vs. 4.37% (p = 0.561). Age and injury severity adjusted odds ratio of SCI in the highest risk cohort of patients with V-ST was 1.097 after SMR implementation (95% CI 0.818-1.472). Conclusion: In this limited study, no change in the incidence of SCI was identified following implementation of SMR protocols. Prospective evaluation of this question is necessary to evaluate the safety of SMR protocols.

Improving the Continuum of Care by Bridging the Gap between Prehospital and Hospital Discharge Data through Stepwise Deterministic Linkage.

Objective: To describe the process, benefits, and challenges of linking Arizona's prehospital registry to hospital discharge data. Methods: Data were queried from the Arizona Prehospital Information and Emergency Medical Services Registry System (AZ-PIERS) and the Arizona Hospital Discharge Database (HDD) for the calendar year 2015. To maximize the number of matched records, the databases were deterministically linked in 17 steps using different combinations/variations of patient personal identifiers. Random samples of at least 1% of matched pairs from each of 16 linkage steps (excluding Step 1) were manually reviewed to assess the rate of false positive matches. Results: A total of 626,413 records were reported to AZ-PIERS in 2015. Of those, 503,715 qualified for linkage. These records were matched against 3,125,689 discharge records reported to the HDD in 2015. The first step, which involved exact matching on first name, last name, date of birth, gender, and date of incident/date of admission, yielded a linkage of 64.6% (n = 325,156). The 16 successive steps yielded a further linkage of 26.6% (n = 134,006) for a total linkage of 91.2% (n = 459,162). The manual review indicated an overall false positive match rate for the 16 reviewed steps of 6.96% (n = 99). The 2 steps with the highest false positive match rates were Step 16 (43.02%, n = 77) and Step 17 (31.43%, n = 11). Conclusion: It is feasible to link prehospital and hospital data using stepwise deterministic linkage; this method returns a high linkage rate with a low false positive error rate. Data linkage is vital to identifying and bridging gaps in the continuum of care and is a useful tool in statewide and agency-specific research and quality improvement.

Death by Suicide-The EMS Profession Compared to the General Public.

BACKGROUND: In 2016, nearly 45,000 deaths in the United States were attributed to suicide making this the 10th leading cause of death for all ages. National survey data suggest that among Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs), including firefighters and Paramedics, rates of suicide are significantly higher than among the general public. EMTs face high levels of acute and chronic stress as well as high rates of depression and substance abuse, which increase their risk of suicide. OBJECTIVE/AIM: To determine the statewide Mortality Odds Ratio (MOR) of suicide completion among EMTs as compared to non-EMTs in Arizona. METHODS: We analyzed the Arizona Vital Statistics Information Management System Electronic Death Registry of all adult (≥18) deaths between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2015. Manual review of decedent occupation was performed to identify the EMT cohort; all other deaths were included in the non-EMT cohort. Using the underlying cause of death as the outcome, we calculated the MOR of both the EMT and non-EMT cohorts. RESULTS: There were a total of 350,998 deaths during the study period with 7,838 categorized as suicide. The proportion of deaths attributed to suicide among EMTs was 5.2% (63 of 1,205 total deaths) while the percentage among non-EMTs was 2.2% (7,775/349,793) (p < 0.0001). The crude Mortality Odds Ratio for EMTs compared with non-EMTs was [cMOR 2.43; 95% CI (1.88-3.13)]. After adjusting for gender, age, race, and ethnicity, EMTs had higher odds that their death was by suicide than non-EMTs [aMOR: 1.39; 95% CI (1.06-1.82)]. CONCLUSION: In this statewide analysis, we found that EMTs had a significantly higher Mortality Odds Ratio due to suicide compared to non-EMTs. Further research is necessary to identify the underlying causes of suicide among EMTs and to develop effective prevention strategies.

Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Rates of Traumatic Injury in Arizona, 2011-2012.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to compare the rates of traumatic injury among five racial/ethnic groups in Arizona and to identify which mechanisms and intents of traumatic injury were predominant in each group. METHODS: We obtained 2011 and 2012 data on traumatic injury from Arizona's trauma registry and data on mortality from Arizona's death registry. We calculated location- and age-adjusted rates (aRs) of traumatic injury and rates of mortality per 100,000 Arizona residents and rate ratios (RRs) for each racial/ethnic group. We also calculated race/ethnicity specific aRs and RRs by mechanism of injury, intent of injury, and alcohol use. RESULTS: We analyzed data on 58,034 cases of traumatic injury. After adjusting for age and location, American Indians/Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) had the highest overall rate of traumatic injury (n = 6,287; aR = 729) and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders had the lowest overall rate of traumatic injury (n = 553; aR = 141). By intent, AI/ANs had the highest rate of homicide/assault-related traumatic injury (n = 2,170; aR = 221) and by mechanism, non-Hispanic black/African American people had the highest rate of firearm-related traumatic injury (n = 265; aR = 40). In 2011-2012, 8,868 deaths in Arizona were related to traumatic injury. AI/ANs had the highest adjusted mortality rate (n = 716; aR = 95). CONCLUSION: Racial/ethnic disparities in traumatic injuries persisted after adjusting for age and injury location. Understanding how these disparities differ by mechanism, intent, and alcohol use may lead to the development of more effective initiatives to prevent traumatic injury.

In vitro antimicrobial studies of silver carbene complexes: activity of free and nanoparticle carbene formulations against clinical isolates of pathogenic bacteria.

OBJECTIVES: Silver carbenes may represent novel, broad-spectrum antimicrobial agents that have low toxicity while providing varying chemistry for targeted applications. Here, the bactericidal activity of four silver carbene complexes (SCCs) with different formulations, including nanoparticles (NPs) and micelles, was tested against a panel of clinical strains of bacteria and fungi that are the causative agents of many skin and soft tissue, respiratory, wound, blood, and nosocomial infections. METHODS: MIC, MBC and multidose experiments were conducted against a broad range of bacteria and fungi. Time-release and cytotoxicity studies of the compounds were also carried out. Free SCCs and SCC NPs were tested against a panel of medically important pathogens, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (MRAB), Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Burkholderia cepacia and Klebsiella pneumoniae. RESULTS: All four SCCs demonstrated strong efficacy in concentration ranges of 0.5-90 mg/L. Clinical bacterial isolates with high inherent resistance to purified compounds were more effectively treated either with an NP formulation of these compounds or by repeated dosing. Overall, the compounds were active against highly resistant bacterial strains, such as MRSA and MRAB, and were active against the biodefence pathogens Bacillus anthracis and Yersinia pestis. All of the medically important bacterial strains tested play a role in many different infectious diseases. CONCLUSIONS: The four SCCs described here, including their development as NP therapies, show great promise for treating a wide variety of bacterial and fungal pathogens that are not easily killed by routine antimicrobial agents.