The impact of prehospital resuscitation research on in-hospital care

Abstract

Since their introduction over 40 years ago, paramedics have been trained to deliver select advanced life support interventions in the community with the goal of reducing morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease and trauma. The ensuing decades witnessed a great deal of interest in paramedic care, with an exponential growth in prehospital resuscitation research. As part of the CJEM series on emergency medical services (EMS), we review recent prehospital research in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and discuss how, in a novel departure from the origins of EMS, prehospital research is beginning to influence in-hospital care. We discuss emerging areas of study related to cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) quality, therapeutic hypothermia, termination of resuscitation, and the use of end-tidal carbon dioxide measurement, as well as the subtle ripple effects that prehospital research is having on the broader understanding of the management of these critically ill patients.