Paramedic assessment and treatment of upper airway obstruction in pediatric patients: an exploratory analysis by the Children's Safety Initiative-Emergency Medical Services

Multimedia Evaluation of EMT-Paramedic Assessment and Management of Pediatric Respiratory Distress

BACKGROUND

The prehospital care of asthma, bronchiolitis and croup is directed by evidence-based Emergency Medical Services (EMS) protocols. Determining the appropriate intervention for these conditions requires Emergency Medical Technicians-Paramedics (EMT-Ps) to correctly differentiate asthma/bronchospasm, bronchiolitis, and croup. The diagnostic accuracy of EMT-Ps for these pediatric respiratory distress conditions is unknown.

OBJECTIVE

We hypothesized increasing provider age, years of provider experience, higher volume of pediatric cases, self-reported comfort with pediatric patients, and having children of one's own would be associated with increased accuracy in diagnosis on a validated multimedia questionnaire.

METHODS

This is a cross-sectional study of paramedics from a single EMS agency who completed a validated, case-based questionnaire between July and September 2018. The multimedia questionnaire consisted of four cases, each of which included patient videos and lung sound recordings. Paramedics were asked to assess the severity of distress and ascribe the correct diagnosis and prehospital intervention for each case. Each paramedic completed the questionnaire independently. We defined high questionnaire performance a priori as correctly identifying the diagnosis for ≥75% of cases and used multivariate regression to assess factors associated with high questionnaire performance. Provider age and EMS experience were reported in years and analyzed as continuous variables. Volume of pediatric cases was dichotomized to <1 and ≥1 case per shift and having children was dichotomized to either having children or not having children.

RESULTS

Of 514 paramedics, 420 (82%) completed the questionnaire. Overall, paramedics correctly assessed the severity of respiratory distress 92% of the time. However, they only ascribed the correct diagnosis 50% and selected the correct intervention(s) 38% of the time. Increasing age, years of experience, higher volume of pediatric cases, self-reported comfort with pediatric patients, and having children of their own were not associated with questionnaire performance.

CONCLUSION

Paramedics accurately assessed severity of distress in multimedia cases of asthma/bronchospasm, bronchiolitis and croup in children, but showed significant room for improvement in correctly identifying the diagnosis and in selecting appropriate intervention(s). Age, years of EMS experience, higher volume of clinical pediatric cases, self-reported comfort with pediatric patients, and having children of their own were not associated with questionnaire performance.

Establishing the Key Outcomes for Pediatric Emergency Medical Services Research

The evidence supporting best practices when treating children in the prehospital setting or even the effect emergency medical services (EMS) has on patient outcomes is limited. Standardizing the critical outcomes for EMS research will allow for focused and comparable effort among the small but growing group of pediatric EMS investigators on specific topics. Standardized outcomes will also provide the opportunity to collectively advance the science of EMS for children and demonstrate the effect of EMS on patient outcomes. This article describes a consensus process among stakeholders in the pediatric emergency medicine and EMS community that identified the critical outcomes for EMS care in five clinical areas (traumatic brain injury, general injury, respiratory disease/failure, sepsis, and seizures). These areas were selected based on both their known public health importance and their commonality in EMS encounters. Key research outcomes identified by participating stakeholders using a modified nominal group technique for consensus building, which included small group brainstorming and independent voting for ranking outcomes that were feasible and/or important for the field.

Safety Events in High Risk Prehospital Neonatal Calls

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to quantify and characterize patient safety events during high-risk neonatal transports in the prehospital setting.

METHOD

We conducted a retrospective chart review of all "lights and sirens" ambulance transports of neonates ≤30 days old over a four-year period in a metropolitan area. Each case was independently reviewed for potential patient safety events that may have occurred in clinical assessment and decision making, resuscitation, airway management, fluid or medication administration, procedures performed, and/or equipment used.

RESULTS

Twenty-six patients ≤30 days old were transported by ambulance using lights and sirens during the four-year study period. Overall, safety events occurred in 19 patients and severe safety events (potentially causing permanent injury or harm, including death) occurred in ten. The incidence of safety events related to medication administrations was 90% (70% severe), resuscitation 64.7% (47.1% severe), procedures 64.7% (35.3% severe), fluid administration 50% (25% severe), clinical assessment and decision making 50% (30.8% severe), airway management 47.6% (28.6% severe), equipment use 25.5% (10.0% severe), and systems processes 19.2% (7.7% severe).

CONCLUSIONS

High-risk neonatal calls are infrequent and prone to a high incidence of serious patient safety events.

Safety events in pediatric out-of-hospital cardiac arrest

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to explore the types of patient safety events that take place during pediatric out-of-hospital cardiac arrest resuscitation.

METHODS

Retrospective medical record review from a single large urban EMS system of EMS-treated pediatric (<18years of age) out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) occurring between 2008 and 2011. A chart review tool was developed for this project and each chart was reviewed by a multidisciplinary review panel. Safety events were identified in the following clinical domains: resuscitation; assessment, impression/diagnosis, and clinical decision making; airway/breathing; fluids and medications; procedures; equipment; environment; and system.

RESULTS

From a total of 497 critical transports during the study period, we identified 35 OHCA cases (7%). A total of 87% of OHCA cases had a safety event identified. Epinephrine overdoses were identified in 31% of the OHCA cases, most of which were 10-fold overdoses. Other medication errors included failure to administer epinephrine when indicated and administration of atropine when not indicated. In 20% of OHCA cases, 3 or more intubation attempts took place or intubation attempts were ultimately not successful. Lack of end-tidal C02 use for tube confirmation was also common. The most common arrest algorithm errors were placing an advanced airway too early (before administration of epinephrine) and giving a medication not included in the algorithm, primarily atropine, both occurring in almost 1/3 of cases.

CONCLUSIONS

Safety events were common during pediatric OHCA resuscitation especially in the domains of medications, airway/breathing, and arrest algorithms.