BackgroundDespite numerous studies on prehospital airway management, results are difficult to compare due to inconsistent or heterogeneous data. The objective of this study was to assess advanced airway management from international physician-staffed helicopter emergency medical services.MethodsWe collected airway data from 21 helicopter emergency medical services in Australia, England, Finland, Hungary, Norway and Switzerland over a 12-month period. A uniform Utstein-style airway template was used for collecting data.ResultsThe participating services attended 14,703 patients on primary missions during the study period, and 2,327 (16 %) required advanced prehospital airway interventions. Of these, tracheal intubation was attempted in 92 % of the cases. The rest were managed with supraglottic airway devices (5 %), bag-valve-mask ventilation (2 %) or continuous positive airway pressure (0.2 %). Intubation failure rates were 14.5 % (first-attempt) and 1.2 % (overall). Cardiac arrest patients showed significantly higher first-attempt intubation failure rates (odds ratio: 2.0; 95 % CI: 1.5-2.6; p < 0.001) compared to non-cardiac arrest patients. Complications were recorded in 13 %, with recognised oesophageal intubation being the most frequent (25 % of all patients with complications). For non-cardiac arrest patients, important risk predictors for first-attempt failure were patient age (a non-linear association) and administration of sedatives (reduced failure risk). The patient’s sex, provider’s intubation experience, trauma type (patient category), indication for airway intervention and use of neuromuscular blocking agents were not risk factors for first-attempt intubation failure.ConclusionsAdvanced airway management in physician-staffed prehospital services was performed frequently, with high intubation success rates and low complication rates overall. However, cardiac arrest patients showed significantly higher first-attempt failure rates compared to non-cardiac arrest patients. All failed intubations were handled successfully with a rescue device or surgical airway.Trial registrationStudy registration: www.clinicaltrials.govNCT01502111. Registered 22 December 2011.

BackgroundThe effective treatment of airway compromise in trauma and non-trauma patients is important. Hypoxia and hypotension are predictors of negative patient outcomes and increased mortality, and may be important quality indicators of care provided by emergency medical services. Excluding cardiac arrests, critical trauma and non-trauma patients remain the two major groups to which helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) are dispatched. Several studies describe the impact of pre-hospital hypoxia or hypotension on trauma patients, but few studies compare this in trauma and non-trauma patients. The primary aim was to describe the incidence of pre-hospital hypoxia and hypotension in the two groups receiving pre-hospital tracheal intubation (TI) by physician-staffed HEMS.MethodsData were collected prospectively over a 12-month period, using a uniform Utstein-style airway template. Twenty-one physician-staffed HEMS in Europe and Australia participated. We compared peripheral oxygen saturation and systolic blood pressure before and after definitive airway management. Data were analysed using Cochran–Mantel–Haenszel methods and mixed-effects models.ResultsEight hundred forty three trauma patients and 422 non-trauma patients receiving pre-hospital TI were included. Non-trauma patients had significantly lower predicted mean pre-intervention SpO2 compared to trauma patients. Post-intervention and admission SpO2 for the two groups were comparable. However, 3% in both groups were still hypoxic at admission. For hypotension, the differences between the groups were less prominent. However, 9% of trauma and 10% of non-trauma patients were still hypotensive at admission. There was no difference in short-term survival between trauma (97%) and non-trauma patients (95%). Decreased level of consciousness was the most frequent indication for TI, and was associated with increased survival to hospital (cOR 2.8; 95% CI: 1.4–5.4).ConclusionsOur results showed that non-trauma patients had a higher incidence of hypoxia before TI than trauma patients, but few were hypoxic at admission. The difference for hypotension was less prominent, but one in ten patients were still hypotensive at admission. Further investigations are needed to identify reversible causes that may be corrected to improve haemodynamics in the pre-hospital setting. We found high survival rates to hospital in both groups, suggesting that physician-staffed HEMS provide high-quality emergency airway management in trauma and non-trauma patients.Trial registrationClinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01502111. Registered 22 Desember 2011.

In 2011 the Hungarian Air Ambulance Nonprofit Limited Company introduced a new Rapid Sequence Intubation standard operating procedure using a template from London’s Air Ambulance. This replaced a previous ad-hoc and unsafe prehospital advanced airway management practice. It was hoped that this would increase clinical standards including internationally comparable results. All Rapid Sequence Intubations performed by the units of the Hungarian Air Ambulance under the new procedure between June 2011 and November 2013 were reviewed in a retrospective database analysis. During this period the air ambulance units completed 4880 missions with 433 intubations performed according to the new procedure. The rate of intubations that were successful on first attempt was 95.4% (413), while intubation was successful overall in 99.1% (429) of the cases; there was no failed airway. 90 complications were noted with 73 (16.9%) patients. Average on scene time was 49 minutes (ranging between: 15–110 minutes). This data shows that it is possible to effectively change a system that was in place for decades by implementing a new robust system that is based on a good template.

Objective: Research on helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) in major incidents is predominately based on case descriptions reported in a heterogeneous fashion. Uniform data reported with a consensus-based template could facilitate the collection, analysis, and exchange of experiences. This type of database presently exists for major incident reporting at www.majorincidentreporting.net. This study aimed to develop a HEMS-specific major incident template. Methods: This Delphi study included 17 prehospital critical care physicians with current or previous HEMS experience. All participants interacted through e-mail. We asked these experts to define data variables and rank which were most important to report during an immediate prehospital medical response to a major incident. Five rounds were conducted. Results: In the first round, the experts suggested 98 variables. After 5 rounds, 21 variables were determined by consensus. These variables were formatted in a template with 4 main categories: HEMS background information, the major incident characteristics relevant to HEMS, the HEMS response to the major incident, and the key lessons learned. Conclusion: Based on opinions from European experts, we established a consensus-based template for reporting on HEMS responses to major incidents. This template will facilitate uniformity in the collection, analysis, and exchange of experience.