Pre-Hospital Ultrasound Training for Helicopter Emergency Medical Service Providers

Patients in the pre-hospital setting are an at-risk population. The use of ultrasound has been shown to reduce morbidity and mortality in critically ill emergency room patients. Only 4.1% of emergency medical service providers use ultrasound and 21.7% are considering the implementation of ultrasound. A previous study has shown that the use of pre-hospital ultrasound to obtain an echocardiogram altered patient management. However, no studies were found related to the use of ultrasound to examine the inferior vena cava for fluid status and fluid responsiveness in the pre-hospital setting. This project assessed ability to train flight nurses and paramedics in basic ultrasound technique and inferior vena cava (IVC) examinations. Baseline knowledge was gathered, a learning module was administered, and a posttest was then gathered for comparison. Each flight nurse and paramedic who completed the pretest, education module, and posttest was required to schedule a 4-hour hands-on training session with a physician in the emergency department. Participants' posttest scores were higher after module completion compared to the pretest. There was sufficient evidence to support that the ultrasound and IVC education module significantly improved testing scores of flight nurses and flight paramedics. This study was useful because it looked into the possibility of educating local flight nurses and flight paramedics in using the ultrasound IVC examination for pre-hospital patient care. Study results could impact the future of how staff members for flight companies are trained for procedures. Results suggest that it is possible for flight nurses and flight paramedics to be taught exams such as ultrasound IVC that are usually outside of their skill set. This study is paramount in laying the foundation for future research on pre-hospital ultrasound IVC exams.