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Dashing with scooters to in-hospital emergencies: a randomised cross-over experiment
Harald Herkner1, Philip Eisenburger, Christof Havel
1Department of Emergency Medicine, Vienna General Hospital, Medical School, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, A-1090, Vienna, Austria. harald.herkner@akh-wien.ac.at
Objective:
Physical exhaustion is a frequent condition in emergency medical teams after in-house emergency runs, which might affect the quality of advanced care. Newly available light-weight scooters may reduce exertion as measured by the cardiovascular response in these circumstances and, therefore, may reduce physical exhaustion on arrival.
Methods:
We undertook a randomised cross-over trial in a simulated in-house emergency alarm run to examine the influence of scooting compared with conventional running on pulse rate (primary outcome), manual skillfulness and response time.
Results:
We tested 24 emergency department professionals in eight emergency medical teams. After scooting the pulse rate was significantly lower compared with conventional running [157 (IQR 145-169) vs. 170 (IQR 154-175) min(-1), P=0.004]. After the simulated emergency alarm run no difference was found in manual skillfulness and response time between scooting and running.
Conclusion:
Using scooters for simulated in-house emergency alarm runs markedly reduces the cardiovascular response of emergency medical teams.