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Cabin temperature during prehospital patient transport - a prospective observational study
- Source :
- Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, Vol 28, Iss 1, Pp 1-8 (2020)
- Publication Year :
- 2019
-
Abstract
- Background Few studies have investigated the patient compartment temperatures during ambulance missions or its relation to admission hypothermia. Still hypothermia is a known risk factor for increased mortality and morbidity in both trauma and disease. This has special relevance to our sub-arctic region’s pre-hospital services, and we prospectively studied the environmental temperature in the patient transport compartment in both ground and air ambulances. Methods We recorded cabin temperature during patient transport in two ground ambulances and one ambulance helicopter in the catchment area of the University Hospital of North Norway using automatic temperature loggers. The data were collected for one month in each of the four seasons. We calculated the sum of degrees Celsius below 18 min by minute to describe the patient exposure to unfavourably low cabin temperature, and present the data as box plots. The statistical differences between transport mode and season were analysed with ANCOVA. Results The recorded cabin temperatures were higher during the summer than the other three seasons. However, we also found that helicopter transports were performed at lower cabin temperatures and with significantly more exposure to unfavourably low temperatures than the ground ambulance transports. Furthermore, the helicopter cabin reached the final temperature much slower than the ground ambulance cabins did or remained at a lower than comfortable temperature. Conclusions Helicopter cabin temperature during ambulance missions should be monitored closer, particularly for patients at risk for developing admission hypothermia.
- Subjects :
- Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Emergency Medical Services
Admission hypothermia
Aircraft
Cold exposure
Helicopter emergency medical service
Hypothermia
Critical Care and Intensive Care Medicine
Ground-ambulance
Ambulance
Environmental temperature
Patient Transport
Risk Factors
Medicine
Humans
VDP::Medisinske Fag: 700
Prospective Studies
Ambient temperature
Pre-hospital transport
Original Research
HEMS
North norway
business.industry
Norway
Air Ambulances
lcsh:Medical emergencies. Critical care. Intensive care. First aid
Temperature
lcsh:RC86-88.9
Patient exposure
University hospital
VDP::Medical disciplines: 700
Transportation of Patients
Emergency medicine
Emergency Medicine
Observational study
Female
business
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 17577241
- Volume :
- 28
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....1138327d49417b24b21712c12279e2c0