OBJECTIVES We sought to assess microbial air quality and bacterial surface contamination on medical instruments and the surrounding areas among 30 ambulance runs during service. METHODS We performed a cross-sectional study of 106 air samples collected from 30 ambulances before patient services and 212 air samples collected during patient services to assess the bacterial and fungal counts at t...

INTRODUCTION An impedance threshold device (ITD) has been developed for the treatment of cardiac arrest to augment circulation to the heart and brain during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The ITD has ventilation timing lights that flash at 12 min(-1) to discourage excessive ventilation rates. HYPOTHESIS Implementation of the ITD during conventional manual CPR in a large emergency medica...

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS Opioid overdose fatalities are a significant concern globally. Non-fatal overdoses have been described as a strong predictor for future overdoses, and are often attended by the ambulance services. This paper explores characteristics associated with non-fatal overdoses and aims to identify possible trends among these events in an urban area in Norway. DESIGN AND METHODS T...

OBJECTIVE To assess daily variations in ambulance calls for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), mental and behavioral disorders, and external causes in Arkhangelsk, Northwest Russia, in 2000-2008. STUDY DESIGN A population-based study. METHODS Data about all ambulance calls during the years 2000-2008 were obtained from the Arkhangelsk ambulance station. Information about patient's gender, age, ...

BACKGROUND An optimal ambulance response interval is desirable for emergency medical services (EMS) operations. Arriving on scene within a treatment time window is often delayed for many reasons, including overwhelming call volume. OBJECTIVE To determine whether an association exists between the ambulance call volume (ACV), the unavailable-for-response (UFR) interval, and the delayed ambulanc...

How should one allocate a fleet of ambulances to fixed bases with the goal of keeping response times to calls as small as possible? We present two new models for this problem, both of which are based on the Erlang loss formula. The first model is stylized, and shows that allocating ambulances in proportion to the offered load is not necessarily optimal and can often be substantially improved up...

BACKGROUND AND AIM Home care for respiratory patients includes a complex array of services delivered in an uncontrolled setting. The role of a respiratory specialist inside the home healthcare team has been scarcely studied up to now. Our aims were to analyse the number and quality of episodic home visits performed by respiratory physicians to severe bedridden Chronic Respiratory Failure (CRF) ...

BACKGROUND High levels of stress among ambulance personnel have been attributed to the conditions of ambulance work. However, there is little research to support this notion, and it has been questioned whether ambulance work is inherently stressful. We compared the severity and frequency level of organizational and ambulance-specific stressors, and studied their relationship to organizational c...

AIM OF THE STUDY To study factors associated with short-term and long-term survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest presenting with pulseless electrical activity (PEA). MATERIALS AND METHODS This was a retrospective observational study. All out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Helsinki, Finland during 1 January 1997-31 December 2005 were prospectively registered in the cardiac arrest datab...