Quality of analgesia in physician-operated telemedical prehospital emergency care is comparable to physician-based prehospital care - a retrospective longitudinal study.

ABSTRACT: Acute pain is a common reason for summoning emergency medical services (EMS). Yet in several countries the law restricts opioid-based analgesia administration to physicians. Telemedical support of paramedics is a novel approach to enable timely treatment under the guidance of a physician. In this retrospective observational study, conducted in the EMS of Aachen, Germany, the analgesic quality and occurrence of adverse events were compared between telemedically-supported paramedics (July-December, 2014) and a historical control group (conventional on-scene EMS physicians; January-March, 2014).

Inclusion criteria

pain (initial numerical rating scale (NRS) ≥5) and/or performed analgesia. Telemedically-assisted analgesia was performed in 149 patients; conventional analgesia in 199 contr

SUBMITTER: Lenssen N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5431537 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature