Pre-Hospital Intubation: Why all the controversy?
A 2007 review of reasons why pre-hospital intubation is controversial, with positive and negative evidence. By David Lockey, Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, and London HEMS
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Pre-Hospital Rapid Sequence Intubation
A review of method, controversy, and evidence, by Dr Peter Sherren (London HEMS), delivered to Australian College of Ambulance Professionals, October 2012
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Pre-Hospital Rapid Sequence Intubation Improves Functional Outcome For Patients With Severe Traumatic Brain Injury
Bernard et al, Annals of Surgery, 2010
“A total of 312 patients with severe TBI were randomly assigned to paramedic rapid sequence intubation or hospital intubation. The success rate for paramedic intubation was 97%. At 6 months, the median GOSe score was 5 (interquartile range, 1–6) in patients intubated by paramedics compared with 3 (interquartile range, 1–6) in the patients intubated at hospital (P = 0.28). The proportion of patients with favorable outcome (GOSe, 5–8) was 80 of 157 patients (51%) in the paramedic intubation group compared with 56 of 142 patients (39%) in the hospital intubation group (risk ratio, 1.28; 95% confidence interval, 1.00–1.64; P = 0.046). ”
Read more here… (pdf source – Ambulance Victoria)
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Head Injury Retrieval Trial Results
A presentation by Alan Garner, Medical Director of Careflight, at ICEM 2012
“Physician led prehospital trauma teams decrease the length of ICU stay for patients with severe head injury. Sensitivity analyses indicate that there may also be significant benefits in mortality and morbidity for transportation injury patients that was obscured by the highly selective cross overs in this trial”
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Greater Sydney Area HEMS Pre-Hospital RSI Manual
Auckland HEMS 