Category Archives: Prehospital medicine

Prehospital blood product use

Originally posted on Auckland HEMS:
When prehospital blood storage goes bad… Auckland HEMS is currently exploring the use of blood products in our prehospital environment. Two interesting papers regarding prehospital blood product use were recently published by the Queensland Ambulance Service. The Queensland Ambulance Service maintains a 24/7 doctor/paramedic trauma response team that is dispatched…

Greater Sydney Area HEMS podcasts

Originally posted on Auckland HEMS:
Our colleagues from Sydney have created an excellent group of podcasts about pre-hospital and retrieval medicine: NEUROPROTECTION – covers retrieval of patients with neurological and neurosurgical emergencies; also view their helicopter operating procedure HERE INTERHOSPITAL PATIENT ASSESSMENT – overview of the assessment of a critically ill patient requiring transfer from…

Human factors in aviation errors – The Dirty Dozen

Originally posted on Auckland HEMS:
Following a spate of aviation accidents in the 1980’s and 1990’s, Transport Canada and the aviation industry came up with the aviation ‘Dirty Dozen’ – human factors in aviation maintenance that commonly lead to errors. Consider these in the context of your prehospital or emergency service: . (thanks to Tim…

Prehospital amputation

Originally posted on Auckland HEMS:
Auckland HEMS has recently added a Gigli saw to the medical pack in case a patient requires prehospital amputation. Fortunately the team has not yet been required to perform this procedure. Anecdotally, prehospital amputations that have been performed by paramedic staffed EMS in the Auckland area in recent years have…

AmboFOAM Podcast: Post Cardiac Arrest Care.

Originally posted on AmboFOAM:
Many moons ago it was common practice that as soon as we had a pulse back from an arrested patient we would throw them in the ambulance and drive fast to hospital with little, if any, further management… This has changed and now there are a number of goals we try…

AmboFOAM Podcast: Cardiac Arrest

Originally posted on AmboFOAM:
Welcome again to the AmboFOAM podcast. This is part one of two episodes on cardiac arrest. These podcasts are again designed for the new paramedic or paramedic student. This time we are discussing cardiac arrest, primarily why we do what we do at an arrest. Part two will deal with the…