Prehospital Care
1Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA
2Department of Emergency Medicine, Denver Health Medical Center; Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Colorado, CO, USA
3Boston EMS, Police and Fire; Department of Emergency Medicine, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
4“Urgence Pratique Formation,” Ganges, France
Prehospital Care
Description
The delivery of prehospital care for injury and illness is reaching a new level of basis in evidence and data. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) medical directors are increasingly looking to others' experiences to inform their own decisions about implementation of cutting-edge approaches. In addition to the traditional areas of focus in airway management and circulatory support, EMS providers have opportunity to significantly improve survival with prehospital institution of practices such as therapeutic hypothermia. Prehospital diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities are potentially aided by new technology (e.g., ultrasound and nonintravenous drug delivery systems). Furthermore, new methods of executing consent are enhancing capabilities to execute scientifically rigorous out-of-hospital studies. We invite authors to submit original research and review articles that seek to share EMS experiences with novel techniques, extend the evidence base supporting prehospital practices, or overview critical subject areas in which recent advances have changed the standard of care. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- Utilization of periresuscitation techniques intended to enhance survival in critically ill patients (e.g., therapeutic hypothermia in postarrest situations)
- Assessment of new approaches to old problems (e.g., testing of airway devices requiring lesser skills in training than endotracheal intubation
- Deployment of EMS in areas with limited resources including rural regions with prolonged transport times
- Use of EMS resources in disaster/mass-casualty situations
- Focus on EMS performance in special populations such as pediatric patients
- Reporting on EMS performance with respect to nontraditional or previously underutilized endpoints (e.g., pain relief)
- Analysis of current resource utilization with focus on areas subject to improvement (e.g., collaboration between ground and air EMS for helicopter triage appropriateness)
- Cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis including both mortality and nonmortality endpoints
Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/emi/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: