Paramedic application of ultrasound in the management of patients in the prehospital setting: a review of the literature
Brooke, Mike Walton, Julie Scutt, Diane
Brooke, Mike
Walton, Julie
Scutt, Diane
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Abstract
ABSTRACT
Objectives Recently, attempts have been made to identify the utility of ultrasound in the management of
patients in the prehospital setting. However, in the UK there is no directly relevant supporting evidence that
prehospital ultrasound may reduce patient mortality and morbidity. The evidence available to inform this debate is
almost entirely obtained from outside the UK, where emergency medical services (EMS) routinely use doctors
as part of their model of service delivery. Using a structured review of the literature available, this paper
examines the evidence to determine ‘Is there a place for paramedic ultrasound in the management of patients in
the prehospital setting?’ Method A structured review of the literature to identify clinical trials which examined the use of ultrasound by non-physicians in the prehospital setting. Results Four resources were identified with sufficient
methodological rigour to accurately inform the research question.
Conclusion The theoretical concept that paramedicinitiated prehospital ultrasound may be of benefit in the
management of critically ill patients is not without logical conceptual reason. Studies to date have demonstrated
that with the right education and mentorship, some paramedic groups are able to obtain ultrasound images
of sufficient quality to positively identify catastrophic pathologies found in critically ill patients. More research
is required to demonstrate that these findings are transferable to the infrastructure of the UK EMS, and in
what capacity they may be used to help facilitate optimal patient outcomes.
https://emj.bmj.com/content/27/9/702.long This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ doi: 10.1136/bmj.h535