Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Highlights from the literature

    Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Scoop and go

    Debate continues over a ‘scoop and go’ versus a ‘stay and stabilise’ approach to patient care in the prehospital trauma setting. Analysis of data from more than 19 000 patients presenting to a level 1 trauma centre in California revealed increased odds of mortality if the scene time was greater than 20 min in the case of penetrating trauma. Interestingly, this association was not demonstrated amongst patients who had sustained blunt trauma (Ann Emerg Med 2013;61:167–74).

    Ambulance crashes

    There is evidence to suggest that the risk of road traffic collisions is up to 13 times higher for emergency ambulances per mile travelled than other vehicles. Researchers from Turkey reviewed forensic records and identified 21 deaths of patients who were injured in a road traffic collision whilst being transported in an emergency ambulance (J Forensic Leg Med 2012;19:474–9). Their report is a grim reminder of the potential dangers of travel by emergency ambulance.

    Ambulance diversions

    Diversion of ambulances has been used in an attempt to improve the flow into …

    View Full Text