Impact of drug and equipment preparation on pre-hospital emergency Anaesthesia (PHEA) procedural time, error rate and cognitive load.

Background: We examined the effect of advanced preparation and organisation of equipment and drugs for Pre-hospital Emergency Anaesthesia (PHEA) and tracheal intubation on procedural time, error rates, and cognitive load.

Methods: This study was a randomised, controlled experiment with a crossover design. Clinical teams (physician and paramedic) from the Emergency Medical Retrieval Service and the Scottish Air Ambulance Division were randomised to perform a standardised pre-hospital clinical simulation using either unprepared (standard practice) or pre-prepared (experimental method) PHEA equipment and drugs.