Prehospital interventions: on-scene-time and ambulance-technicians' experience.
BACKGROUND
Very little evidence is available on the experience of ambulance-personnels or on the impact of prehospital interventions on total prehospital time.


OBJECTIVE
On-scene-time increases with the number of prehospital techniques used, and ambulance-technicians achieve only limited clinical experience in prehospital techniques.


METHODS
Prospective, observational registry study including 56 ambulance technicians from two ambulance stations in the mixed urban/rural county and 5,557 patients who were brought to a hospital in 1998. The number of cases in which each ambulance-technician performed various kinds of prehospital techniques, and the average on-scene time for each prehospital technique and several combinations of prehospital techniques were calculated.


RESULTS
There were large differences between the number of times each technique was used. On-scene time was smallest when no techniques were used and tended to increase with the number of interventions used. On-scene-time was relatively low for patients with cardiac arrest.


CONCLUSIONS
The Danish ambulance-technicians' curriculum includes interventions for which the technicians only achieve limited practical experience. Prehospital interventions are associated with an increase of on-scene time.
Birk
Hans O
HO
Rosskilde County Department of Health, University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Health Sciences, Institute of Public health, Department of health Services Research, Copenhagen, Denmark. SYHOB@RA.DK
Henriksen
Lars O
LO
D000552:Ambulances; D003718:Denmark; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D004634:Emergency Medical Technicians / Q000193:education / Q000592:standards*; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D011361:Professional Competence; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013996:Time and Motion Studies; D000078329:Workforce