Article Text
Abstract
Introduction The Emergency Medicine Airway Registry in Ireland (EMAR-I) was launched on July 1st 2020 with the aim of recording all intubations performed in emergency departments (EDs) in Ireland, regardless of the specialties performing them. The National Office of Clinical Audit is supporting the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine (IAEM) and the Emergency Medicine Programme (EMP) with the publication of the inaugural report in Q4 2024, the writing group of which is composed of national and international partners. Ahead of this, we present the results recorded in EMAR-I since its launch.
Methods All EDs in Ireland were invited to record intubations performed in their departments using a secure centralised database (REDCap). The database was interrogated, all intubations from July 1st2020 until August 22nd2024 were included.
Results 261 intubations have been logged since July 2020 with cardiac arrest being the most common reason for intubation (figure 1). An airway assessment was performed prior to 88.89% of intubations with a pre-intubation checklist used 75.86% of the time. Emergency Medicine performed 72.03% of intubations while the overall majority were performed by registrars/SpRs (85.84%). The first pass success rate was 87.36% Video laryngoscopy was used during the first attempt in 61.3% of all intubations. Adverse events were reported in 26.82% of intubations with desaturation and hypotension being the most common complications (figure 2).
Conclusions The number of intubations recorded since the launch of the EMAR-I is far below the numbers estimated to be performed in EDs in Ireland, but those that are recorded have high rates of complications. A number of sites in Ireland have local databases of emergency intubations separate to EMAR-I and work has begun to try to incorporate their data in order to give a greater understanding of practices and outcomes at a national level.