Expert opinion on evidence after 2020 Korean Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Guidelines

Considerable evidence has been published since the 2020 Korean Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Guidelines were reported. The International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) also publishes the Consensus on CPR and Emergency Cardiovascular Care Science with Treatment Recommendations (CoSTR) summary annually. This review provides expert opinions by reviewing the recent evidence on CPR and ILCOR treatment recommendations. The authors reviewed the CoSTR summary published by ILCOR in 2021 and 2022. PICO (population, intervention, comparator, outcome) questions for each topic were reviewed using a systemic or scoping review methodology. Two experts were appointed for each question and reviewed the topic independently. Topics suggested by the reviewers for revision or additional description of the guidelines were discussed at a consensus conference. Forty-three questions were reviewed, including 15 on basic life support, seven on advanced life support, two on pediatric life support, 11 on neonatal life support, six on education and teams, one on first aid, and one related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Finally, the current Korean CPR Guideline was maintained for 28 questions, and expert opinions were suggested for 15 questions.

Delphi study to evaluate the emergency medical system operation fund support projects

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to achieve expert consensus for the evaluation of Emergency medical system operation fund (EMSOF) support projects using the Delphi method in Korea. METHODS: The Delphi study was performed in June 2018. Experts who are members of the policy committee of the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine (KSEM) participated in the study. Respondents were asked to express their level of agreement of appropriateness for the following 6 categories for 21 projects: project contents, amount of support, indicators, performance, overall evaluation, and need to maintain. With a possible score of 9 points, the project categories were classified into 3 groups, inappropriate, moderate and appropriate, based on the median score of the respondents' ratings in each question. RESULTS: Sixteen of the 18 policy committee members participated in the survey. Their average professional work years were 8.2 years. All 21 projects were evaluated as appropriate for content. Amount of support and indicators were evaluated as moderate. Only 5 out of the 21 projects were evaluated as having appropriate indicators. No projects were evaluated as ineffective. Comprehensive evaluation of the projects was evaluated as moderate, and no project was evaluated as inappropriate in fund support. CONCLUSION: Overall, the contents of the EMSOF assistance project were rated high; however, there was a disagreement on the amount of support and evaluation indicators for each project. The results of this study are expected to be used as basic data to improve the use of EMSOF.

Keywords analysis of the Journal of the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine using text mining

OBJECTIVE: Data mining extracts meaningful information from large datasets. In this study, text mining techniques were used to extract keywords from the Journal of the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine, and the change trend was examined. METHODS: The rvest package in R was used to extract all papers published in the Journal of the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine from 2006 to 2016 that could be searched online. Among them, 3,952 keywords were extracted and studied. Using the selected keywords, the corpus was formed by refining keywords that did not correspond to MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) or were misspelled and had similar meanings based on agreement of researchers. Using the refined keywords, the frequencies of the keywords in the first and second halves of the studies were calculated and visualized. RESULTS: Word Cloud revealed that emergency medical service and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) were most frequently mentioned in both the first and second halves of the studies. In the first half, ultrasonography, stroke, poisoning, injury, and education were frequently mentioned, while in the second half, poisoning, injury, stroke, acute, and tomography were frequently mentioned. A pyramid graph revealed that the frequencies of emergency medical service and CPR were commonly high. CONCLUSION: Core keywords of the Journal of the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine were analyzed for correlations and trends. Changes in study topics according to key topics of interest and period were visually identified.

Validation of the finger counting method using the Monte Carlo simulation

PURPOSE: The dose of drug and the size of instrument are determined based on children's weight. We aimed to validate the finger counting method (FCM) for weight estimation in Korean children using the Monte Carlo simulation. METHODS: We estimated the weight of Korean children aged 1 to 9 years by the FCM. These measurements were compared with the weight extracted by the Monte Carlo simulation applied to the “2007 Korean Children and Adolescents Growth Standard”. Pearson correlation coefficients (r) were measured to assess the correlation between the weight extracted by the simulation and that estimated by FCM. Bland-Altman analyses were performed to assess the agreement between the weight extracted by the simulation and that estimated by FCM and 2 other well-known pediatric weight estimation formulas (the Advanced Pediatric Life Support and Luscombe formulas). RESULTS: Data regarding 9,000 children's weight selected by age and gender was randomly extracted using the simulation. We found a positive correlation between the weight estimated by the FCM and the weight extracted (in boys, r = 0.896, P < 0.001; in girls, r = 0.899, P < 0.001). The FCM tended to underestimate weight in the children aged 7 years or old. CONCLUSION: This article suggests the usefulness of FCM in weight estimation, particularly in children younger than 7 years. With appreciation of the limitation in older children, the FCM could be applied to emergency practice.