Response to: Best practice advice on pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia & advanced airway management

Jostein S Hagemo; Per P Bredmose; Halvard Stave; Marius Rehn; Christian Buskop

doi:10.1186/s13049-019-0613-7

Response to: Best practice advice on pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia & advanced airway management

Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med. 2019 Mar 18;27(1):33. doi: 10.1186/s13049-019-0613-7.

Authors

Jostein S Hagemo^{1

2}, Per P Bredmose^{3

4}, Halvard Stave⁵, Marius Rehn^{6

7

8}, Christian Buskop⁹

Affiliations

¹ Division of Prehospital Services, Air Ambulance Department, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway. jostein.hagemo@norskluftambulanse.no.
² Department of Research. Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation, Oslo, Norway. jostein.hagemo@norskluftambulanse.no.
³ Division of Prehospital Services, Air Ambulance Department, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway. bredmose@hotmail.com.
⁴ Department of Research. Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation, Oslo, Norway. bredmose@hotmail.com.
⁵ Division of Prehospital Services, Air Ambulance Department, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway. hstave@gmail.com.
⁶ Division of Prehospital Services, Air Ambulance Department, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway. marius.rehn@norskluftambulanse.no.
⁷ Department of Research. Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation, Oslo, Norway. marius.rehn@norskluftambulanse.no.
⁸ Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway. marius.rehn@norskluftambulanse.no.
⁹ Division of Prehospital Services, Air Ambulance Department, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway. cbuskop@ous-hf.no.

Abstract

The European HEMS and Air ambulance Committee's Medical working group recently published Best Practice advice on pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia and advanced airway management. We believe that this initiative is important. In our opinion however, the competence requirements recommended by the authors do not meet the standards that we should aim for in HEMS services. We argue that pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia should be delivered with a competence level approximating in-hospital standard. In our experience, our patients benefit from pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia delivered by consultants with regular in-hospital rotations and a sound clinical governance system.

Keywords: Airway management; Competence; HEMS; Pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia.

Publication types

Letter

MeSH terms

Air Ambulances*
Airway Management
Anesthesia*
Anesthesiology*
Emergency Medical Services*
Humans