Quality of Telemedically Guided Prehospital Analgesia

RWTH Aachen University

Status

Completed

Conditions

City of Aachen

Tele-emergency Medical Services

Adverse Events

Opioids

Analgesia

Telemedicine

Prehospital

Ambulance

Teleconsultation

Prehospital Emergency Medical Service Physician

Treatments

Procedure: physician operated telemedical prehospital analgesia

Procedure: prehospital analgesia by on-scene EMS physicians

Study type

Observational

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT02928705

Quality of Tele-Analgesia

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this retrospective study is to analyze quality and adverse events of analgesia by telemedically supported paramedics in comparison to conventional treatment by on-scene emergency medical service (EMS) physicians in the EMS of the city of Aachen, Germany.

Full description

The standard emergency medical service (EMS) in Germany consists of a two-tiered system with ambulances (paramedics) and prehospital EMS physician units. For example, legal conditions restrict opioid-based analgesia to physicians. Based on pre-defined standards regional emergency dispatch centers deploy both kinds of emergency units.

In recent years telemedicine emerged as a complementary system in EMS that may provide remote medical expertise and sustain or even improve quality of medical treatment on-scene. Particularly, based on the results of the projects Med-on-@ix and TemRas (telemedical rescue assistance system), emergency telemedical services were gradually implemented in daily routine of the EMS of the city of Aachen, Germany.

In this retrospective study the quality and adverse events of analgesia by telemedically supported paramedics shall be compared to conventional treatment by on-scene EMS physicians in the EMS of the city of Aachen, Germany.

Enrollment

381 patients

Sex

All

Ages

1+ year old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Initial Numerical Rating Scale ≥ 5 and
Documented administration of analgesics

Exclusion criteria

Missing consent for telemedical consultation (in teleconsultation group)
Initial NRS < 5
Analgesia in non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome (Non-STEMI-ACS) and ST-elevating myocardial infarction (STEMI)
Initially unconscious patient
Inter-hospital transfer missions
Cases involving both on-scene and telemedical-EMS physicians