Cerebral oxygen desaturation events during and functional outcomes after prehospital anaesthesia: A prospective pilot study.

Background: During prehospital anaesthesia, oxygen delivery to the brain might be inadequate to match the oxygen consumption, with unknown long-term functional outcomes. We aimed to evaluate the feasibility of monitoring cerebral oxygenation during prehospital anaesthesia and determining the long-term outcomes.

Methods: We performed a prospective observational feasibility study in two helicopter emergency medical services units.

Advising and limiting medical treatment during phone consultation: a prospective multicentre study in HEMS settings.

Background: We investigated paramedic-initiated consultation calls and advice given via telephone by Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) physicians focusing on limitations of medical treatment (LOMT).

Methods: A prospective multicentre study was conducted on four physician-staffed HEMS bases in Finland during a 6-month period.

Results: Of all 6115 (mean 8.

Short-term and long-term survival in critical patients treated by helicopter emergency medical services in Finland: a registry study of 36 715 patients.

Objectives: This study aimed to describe the short-term and long-term mortality of patients treated by prehospital critical care teams in Finland.

Design And Setting: We performed a registry-based retrospective study that included all helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) dispatches in Finland from 1 January 2012 to 8 September 2019. Mortality data were acquired from the national Population Register Centre to calculate the standardised mortality ratio (SMR).

Mortality and quality of care in Nordic physician-staffed emergency medical services.

Background: Quality indicators (QI) for physician staffed emergency medical services (P-EMS) are necessary to improve service quality. Mortality can be considered the ultimate outcome QI. The process quality of care in P-EMS can be described by 15 response-specific QIs developed for these services.

Limiting treatment in pre-hospital care: A prospective, observational multicentre study.

Background: Data are scarce on the withdrawal of life-sustaining therapies and limitation of care orders (LCOs) during physician-staffed Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) missions. We investigated LCOs and the quality of information available when physicians made treatment decisions in pre-hospital care.

Methods: A prospective, nationwide, multicentre study including all Finnish physician-staffed HEMS bases during a 6-month study period.

The first seven years of nationally organized helicopter emergency medical services in Finland - the data from quality registry.

Background: Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) play an important role in prehospital care of the critically ill. Differences in funding, crew composition, dispatch criteria and mission profile make comparison between systems challenging. Several systems incorporate databases for quality control, performance evaluation and scientific purposes.

Testing quality indicators and proposing benchmarks for physician-staffed emergency medical services: a prospective Nordic multicentre study.

Objectives: A consensus study from 2017 developed 15 response-specific quality indicators (QIs) for physician-staffed emergency medical services (P-EMS). The aim of this study was to test these QIs for important characteristics in a real clinical setting. These characteristics were feasibility, rankability, variability, actionability and documentation.

Defining a mission-based method to determine a HEMS unit's actual service area.

Background: Geographical service areas are used as descriptive system indicators in Emergency Medical Service (EMS) related studies and reporting templates. The actual service area may differ significantly from administrative areas; this may lead to inaccuracy in determining indicator values, such as population or mission density, thus making it biased when comparing results between different areas and organizations. The aim of this study was to introduce a univocal, repeatable and easily adaptable method to determine the actual service area of a helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) unit for statistical, quality measurement and research purposes using widely available geographical information (GIS) and statistical analysis tools.