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Study: Helicopter beats ambulance for trauma patients

4/21/2012

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BALTIMORE, Md. — If you are severely injured, a helicopter flight to a top-level trauma center will boost your chance of survival over ground transport. That’s the conclusion of a rigorous, national comparison of the effectiveness of helicopter versus ground emergency medical services, published in the April 18, 2012, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Survival after trauma has increased in recent years with improvements in emergency medical services coupled with the rapid transportation of trauma patients to centers capable of providing the most advanced care. What has not been clear until this study, is the effectiveness of helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS), a limited and expensive resource, compared to its alternative, ground emergency medical services (GEMS).

“We looked at the sickest patients with the most severe injuries and applied sophisticated statistical analyses to the largest aggregation of trauma data in the world,” says the study’s principal investigator, Samuel M. Galvagno Jr., D.O., Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Divisions of Trauma Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine. “We were careful at every step to balance all the potential other factors that could explain any benefit of the helicopter. After all that, the survival advantage of helicopters remained,” says Galvagno.

For this study, Dr. Galvagno developed the most rigorous comparison of helicopter and ground transport to date. He and his team tracked patients meeting certain criteria who were listed in the 2007-2009 version of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB). The NTDB contains more than 1.8 million patient records from more than 900 centers in the United States.
Dr. Galvagno and his team conclude that the helicopter is associated with a 16 percent increased rate of survival for the 156,511 patients transported to Level I trauma centers. That percentage means 65 patients must be transported to save one life. The 64,964 patients who went by chopper to Level II trauma centers had a 15 percent survival advantage, meaning 69 must be transported to save one life.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/307/15/1602.abstract

This study was performed without any commercial funding or extramural sponsorship. Dr. Galvagno was funded, in part, by an institutional training grant when this study was initiated as part of his Ph.D. program at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Full Story: http://www.ems1.com/air-medical-transport/articles/1272889-Study-Helicopter-beats-ambulance-for-trauma-patients-8206/
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Body suits provide realistic medical training

2/13/2012

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www.militarytimes.com
Medics and doctors  can now “operate” on live patients during training...well, sort of.
A soldier can wear a “cut suit” — officially called the Human Worn Partial Task Surgical Simulator — during medical drills.
Weighing about 30 pounds, the suit is equipped with various fake organs, including a bladder, kidneys, veins and skin that can be cut, sliced, sutured and removed.

The “cut suit” is the brainchild of Stu Segall, a Hollywood producer and president of Strategic Operations, a San Diego-based tactical training company that has helped train thousands of Marines and sailors.

“You can do a lot of things on a mannequin, but when you do it on a human being, it’s a totally different dimension,” said Kit Lavell, executive vice president and a retired Marine Corps fighter pilot.
The suit features breakable bones including ribs and sternum, and interchangeable organs, such as hearts that beat at different rates.
The skin is repairable for up to 50 uses, and it’s detailed with layers of dermis and fatty tissue.

http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2010/12/military-cut-suit-provides-realistic-medical-practice-121810w/


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Vacuum Mattress vs. Backboard

2/2/2012

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Vacuum Mattress Demonstration

Watch this interesting video demonstrating the use of a vacuum mattress by our friends at REGA (www.rega.ch)

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The MDI Vacuum Mattress















We've been using the vacuum mattress for the past 15 years.
In our opinion, it's doing a much better job than the traditional backboard which is so popular in the United States.
Lying down on a back board - especially for extended period of times is painful.
The vacuum mattress is by far more comfortable for the patient, it's ability to perfectly immobilize the patient's body translates to considerably less pain for victims suffering from fractures.

The device also lowers the risk of complications associated with movement in the presence of spine and long bones fractures ( vascular and neurological ).

The MSC paramedics are instructed to always immobilize trauma patients with a vacuum mattress.



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The SWAT Tourniquet

1/31/2012

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http://www.kitbag.com.au


















The SWAT tourniquet is gaining popularity with armed forces. It is reliable, easy to apply and inexpensive.
Despite all the hype around that "new" product, it turns out that the device has been invented by the Israelis in the mid seventies and has been in use with the Israeli Defense Forces since then.
The major advantage of this device over the popular CAT tourniquet is the considerably lower price for a comparable efficiency.
SWAT tourniquets can be purchased from MSC at competitive prices.


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http://www.militarytimes.com
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Frontline Medicine - BBC Documentary

1/25/2012

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Watch this captivating BBC Documentary about the latest advances in front line emergency medicine.
The video shows how the implementation of the latest technologies combined with the excellent professional skills of the trauma teams ( surgeons, medics, nurses and technicians ) contributed to the highest survival ratio ever achieved for combat casualties during an armed conflict.

Also available in HD at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_8rKzUk1wPg#!
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