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How do Belgian mobile intensive care units deal with cardiovascular emergencies?
Alex M Heyse1, Walter A Buylaert, Paul A Calle
1Departments of Cardiovascular Diseases, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium.
Objectives:
To assess the availability and use of diagnostic tools, therapeutic equipment and drugs for the prehospital treatment of acute coronary syndromes, cardiopulmonary arrest and other cardiovascular emergencies in Belgian physician-staffed and hospital-based mobile intensive care units.
Methods:
In April 2001, a questionnaire was sent to all Belgian mobile intensive care unit centres.
Results:
The response rate was 90%. There was a 100% availability of many drugs and therapeutic equipment, with a well-established role in the care of cardiovascular emergencies: defibrillators, nitrates, epinephrine, atropine and diuretics. Important emergency drugs and tools were not ubiquitously available: external pacemakers (90%), aspirin (90%), bicarbonate (99%), amiodarone (87%), and intravenous beta-blockers (75%). Twelve-lead electrocardiogram recorders and thrombolytics had a rather low availability (46 and 20%, respectively) and were rarely used. There was a high availability of some drugs with limited data to support their use: oral calcium antagonists (61%), bretylium (65%) and isoproterenol (92%).
Conclusions:
In Belgian mobile intensive care units the availability and use of technical and diagnostic equipment and cardiac drugs varied to an important extent. A local multidisciplinary evaluation may improve prehospital cardiovascular care by implementing current guidelines.