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Prehospital Interventions: On-scene-Time and Ambulance-Technicians' Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Hans O. Birk  and
Lars O. Henriksen
Hans O. Birk*
Affiliation:
Rosskilde County Department of Health and, University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Health Sciences, Institute of Public health, Department of health Services Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Lars O. Henriksen
Affiliation:
Deputy Director, Roskilde County, Department of Public Health, Denmark.
*
Roskilde County, Department of Health, PO Box 170, DK-4000 Roskilde, E-mail: SYHOB@RA.DK
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Abstract

Introduction:

Very little evidence is available on the experience of ambulance-personnels or on the impact of prehospital interventions on total prehospital time.

Hypothesis:

On-scene-time increases with the number of prehospital techniques used, and ambulance-technicians achieve only limited clinical experience in prehospital techniques.

Methods:

Prospective, observational registry study including 56 ambulance technicians from two ambulance stations in the mixed urban/rural county and 5,557 patients who were brought to a hospital in 1998. The number of cases in which each ambulance-technician performed various kinds of prehospital techniques, and the average on-scene time for each prehospital technique and several combinations of prehospital techniques were calculated.

Results:

There were large differences between the number of times each technique was used. On-scene time was smallest when no techniques were used and tended to increase with the number of interventions used. On-scene-time was relatively low for patients with cardiac arrest.

Conclusion:

The Danish ambulance-technicians' curriculum includes interventions for which the technicians only achieve limited practical experience. Prehospital interventions are associated with an increase of on-scene time.

Keywords

ambulance techniciansbasic life supportemergency medical servicesexperienceprehospital
Type
Brief Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , September 2002 , pp. 167 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2002

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