Research & Audit
EMRS is committed to ongoing research and audit around all aspects prehospital and retrieval medicine. Research and audit has been a core part since the start of the voluntary pilot scheme in 2004 and has expanded as the service has grown. There is an active research portfolio covering topics including advanced airway management, long term outcomes following critical illness in rural areas and modelling of national retrieval service activity. In collaboration with the University of Glasgow, the service is now supporting an ongoing programme leading to an MD in retrieval research.
Trainees working with the service undertake a research project as part of their secondment to EMRS and it is expected that this project will lead to appropriate presentations and publications, as well as informing service change. The retrieval practitioners are also actively informed in research projects along with medical students undertaking elective studies. Over the past 10 years, EMRS has published over 30 articles related to prehospital and retrieval medicine as well as presenting this work across the globe.
As part of our clinical governance, EMRS undertakes internal audits of our service against external standards. We have recently completed audits against AAGBI 2006 Brain Injury guidelines and ICS Guidelines for the Transport of the Critically Ill Adult (3rd edition 2011).
EMRS is now part of the EUPHOREA group, collaborating with partner aeromedical organisations around Europe and beyond in research projects. We also are part of an international benchmarking project comparing aeromedical standards of service around the world.
selection of recent PUBLICATIONS
Wimalasena YH, Corfield AR, Hearns S. Comparison of factors associated with desaturation in prehospital emergency anaesthesia in primary and secondary retrievals. Emerg Med J 2015;32:8 642-646
Harry CL, McCormack J, Donald M, Corfield AR. Paediatric Workload of an Adult Retrieval Service in Scotland Eur J Em Med 2017; 24: 67-70
Neagle G, Curatolo L, Ferris J, Donald M, Hearns S., Corfield AR. Epidemiology and Location of Primary Retrieval Missions in a Scottish aeromedical retrieval service. Euro J Em Med 2017 Jul 25; eprint ahead of publication
Haugland H, Rehn M, Klepstad P, Kruger A. EQUIPE-collaboration group. Developing quality indicators for physician-staffed emergency medical services: a consensus process. Scand J Trauma Resus Em Med 2017; 25(1):14
Sinclair N et al. Clinician tasking in ambulance control improves the identification of major trauma patients and pre-hospital critical care team tasking. Injury 2018 May;49(5):897-902
Fitzpatrick D, McKenna M, Duncan EAS, laird C, Lyon R, Corfield AR. CritCOMMS. Critcomms: a national cross-sectional questionnaire based study to investigate prehospital handover practices between ambulance clinicians and specialist prehospital teams in Scotland. Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine; 2018 26:45 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13049-018-0512-3
Swinton P, Corfield AR, Moultrie CM et al. Impact of drug and equipment preparation on pre-hospital emergency Anaesthesia (PHEA) procedural time, error rate and cognitive load. Scand J Trauma & Em Med. 2018; 26: 82 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13049-018-0549-3