Flight critical care nurse

OBJECTIVE: Overtriage (OT) of helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) poses significant burden to multiple stakeholders. The project aims were to identify the following: 1) associated factors, 2) downstream effects, and 3) focus areas for change. METHODS: We undertook a failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) to evaluate our HEMS interfacility transport process. Data were collected from organizational finances and 3 key stakeholder groups: 1) interfacility patients transferred by HEMS in 2017 who were discharged from the receiving facility within 24 hours (n = 149), 2) flight registered nurses (n = 19), and 3) referring emergency medicine providers (EMPs) (n = 30) from the top HEMS users of 2017...

Background: Prehospital pediatric endotracheal intubation (ETI) is rarely performed. Previous research has suggested that pediatric prehospital ETI, when performed by ground advanced life support crews, is associated with poor outcomes. In this study, we aim to evaluate the first-attempt success rate, overall success rate and complications of pediatric prehospital ETI performed by critical care transport (CCT) personnel. Methods: We conducted a retrospective observational study in a multi-state CCT service performing rotor wing, ground, and fixed wing missions...

OBJECTIVE: Our objectives were 2-fold: to describe the creation of a flight nurse (FN) ultrasound (US) program and to evaluate whether critical care US performed by nonphysician providers in the prehospital setting can clarify patient assessment. METHODS: Twenty FNs completed a didactic and hands-on US curriculum focusing on critical care modalities. FNs displayed competency by successful completion of an objective-structured clinical examination. Portable US devices were used during patient transports when deemed clinically indicated by the FN...

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OBJECTIVE: To describe perinatal nurses' experiences of caring for incarcerated women during pregnancy and the postpartum period; to assess their knowledge of the 2011 position statement Shackling Incarcerated Pregnant Women published by the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN); and to assess their knowledge of their states' laws regulating nonmedical restraint use, or shackling, of incarcerated women. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey...

We report the case of a non-physician based critical care transport team (registered nurse and paramedic) that successfully initiated prone positioning of a severe acute respiratory distress patient prior to transport to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation capable teaching hospital. With the increasing use of advanced treatments such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, prone positioning, and continuous renal replacement therapy for severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), the necessity to transport these patients to specialized hospitals will correspondingly increase...

BACKGROUND: Critical Care Air Transport Teams care for 5% to 10% of injured patients who are transported on military aircraft to definitive treatment facilities. Little is known about how the aeromedical evacuation environment affects care. OBJECTIVES: To determine the effects of 2 stressors of flight, altitude-induced hypoxia and aircraft noise, and to examine the contributions of fatigue and clinical experience on cognitive and physiological performance of the Critical Care Air Transport Team...

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine if a helicopter flight simulator could provide a useful educational platform by creating experiences similar to those encountered by actual flight nurses. METHODS: Flight nurse (FN) and non-FN participants completed a simulated emergency scenario in a flight simulator. Physiologic and psychological stress during the simulation was measured using heart rate and perceived stress scores. A questionnaire was then administered to assess the realism of the flight simulator...

OBJECTIVE: The French Military Health Service (FMHS) has developed a training program for medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) of critical care patients on fixed wing aircraft. METHODS: We conducted a 10-year retrospective analysis (2006-2015) of the data from the FMHS Academy. The number of trainees was listed according to the different courses and medical specialties. The number of MEDEVACs recorded during the period was described. RESULTS: Since 2006, the FMHS has developed training courses designed for MEDEVAC of critical care patients...

The Dorothy Ebersbach Academic Center for Flight Nursing in Cleveland, OH, holds an annual flight camp designed for master's degree nursing students in the acute care nurse practitioner program, subspecializing in flight nursing at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. The weeklong interprofessional training is also open to any health care provider working in an acute care setting and focuses on critical care updates, trauma, and emergency care within the critical care transport environment...

IMPORTANCE: To date, a substantial portion of multiple casualty incident literature has focused exclusively on prehospital and emergency department resources needed for optimal disaster response. Thus, inpatient resources required to care for individuals injured in multiple casualty events are not well described. OBJECTIVE: To highlight the resources beyond initial emergency department triage needed for multiple casualty events, using one of the largest commercial aviation disasters in modern US history as a case study...

The air medical transport arena requires the practitioner to develop clinical and diagnostic reasoning abilities to manage the dynamic needs of the patient in unstructured, uncertain, and often unforgiving environments. High-fidelity simulation can be instrumental in training interprofessional flight teams to improve competency through quality and safe patient care during medical transport that may otherwise take years to learn because of the inconsistency in real-world experiences. Because of the suboptimal circumstantial conditions inherent to critical care transport, a helicopter simulator designed to discretely replicate the phases of flight and train teams in air medical transport scenarios has been developed at the Dorothy Ebersbach Academic Center for Flight Nursing at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing in Cleveland, OH...

Accurate endotracheal intubation for patients in extremis or at risk of physiologic decompensation is the gold standard for emergency medicine. Field intubation is a complex process and time to intubation, number of attempts, and hypoxia have all been shown to correlate with increases in morbidity and mortality. Expanding laryngoscope technology which incorporates active video, in addition to direct laryngoscopy, offers providers improved and varied tools to employ in management of the advanced airway. Over a nine-year period a helicopter emergency medical services team, comprised of a flight paramedic and flight nurse, intended to intubate 790 patients...

OBJECTIVE: The primary objective of this study was to describe the remote paediatric aeromedical population of the 'Top End' of the Northern Territory. The secondary objective was to identify children requiring high-dependency care by the transport team. DESIGN: Retrospective case review. SETTING: Aeromedical service in the remote Northern Territory. PARTICIPANTS: All patients under the age of 16 years transported over a one-year period between February 2012 and February 2013...

OBJECTIVE: Flight nurses in the Norwegian National Air Ambulance Service are specialist nurse anesthetists or intensive care nursing specialists. For air ambulance bases far from hospitals, these nurses present otherwise unavailable competencies. This study reports a 6-year experience with flight nurse participation in local emergencies beyond the transportation phase. METHODS: The fixed-wing air ambulance base in Alta, Northern Norway (20,000 inhabitants), with 2 aircraft and 2 on-call teams is 150 km by road from the nearest hospital...

INTRODUCTION: We sought to create a valid framework for detecting adverse events (AEs) in the high-risk setting of helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS). METHODS: We assembled a panel of 10 expert clinicians (n = 6 emergency medicine physicians and n = 4 prehospital nurses and flight paramedics) affiliated with a large multistate HEMS organization in the Northeast US. We used a modified Delphi technique to develop a framework for detecting AEs associated with the treatment of critically ill or injured patients...

INTRODUCTION: Most critically ill injured patients are transported out of the theater by Critical Care Air Transport Teams (CCATTs). Fever after trauma is correlated with surgical complications and infection. The purposes of this study are to identify the incidence of elevated temperature in patients managed in the CCATT environment and to describe the complications reported and the treatments used in these patients. METHODS: We performed a retrospective review of available records of trauma patients from the combat theater between March 1, 2009, and March 31, 2010, who were transported by the US Air Force CCATT and had an incidence of hyperthermia...

Adverse events are not unusual in a more and more complex anesthesiological environment. The main reasons for this are an increasing workload, economic pressure, growing expectations of patients and deficits in planning and communication. However, these incidents mostly do not refer to medical deficits but to flaws in non-technical skills (team organisation, task orientation, decision making and communication). The introduction of the WHO Safe Surgery Checklist depicted that a structural approach can improve the situation...

BACKGROUND: The US Army pioneered medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) by helicopter, yet its system remains essentially unchanged since the Vietnam era. Care is provided by a single combat medic credentialed at the Emergency Medical Technician - Basic level. Treatment protocols, documentation, medical direction, and quality improvement processes are not standardized and vary significantly across US Army helicopter evacuation units. This is in contrast to helicopter emergency medical services that operate within the United States...

During the Second Iraq War (Operation Iraqi Freedom), high-intensity, low-utilization medical and surgical services, such as neurosurgical care, were consolidated into a centralized location within the combat zone. This arrangement necessitated intra-theater air medical evacuation of critically ill or injured patients from outlying combat support hospitals (CSH) to another combat zone facility having the needed services. A case series is presented of intratheater transfer of neurosurgical patients in Iraq during 2005-06...