Out-of-Hospital Intubation Success Rates Vary Based on Transport Environment

Oral endotracheal intubation is a procedure performed by emergency medical services (EMS) providers-who are stationed on ground ambulances, rotor-wing air ambulances (helicopter), and fixed-wing air ambulances (airplane)-for the purpose of securing a patient's airway.

Historically, intubation success rates have depended on human factors, such as provider familiarity with intubation. There has been relatively little literature examining intubation success rates as a factor of EMS transport environment, despite there being important human factors differences between the different environments.

We queried a national database of EMS calls in the United States. Inclusion criteria were oral endotracheal intubations performed in 2019 where providers documented whether or not the intubation was successful and what mode of transport they were assigned to.

A total of 98,048 intubations met inclusion criteria. The majority of intubations were performed by providers stationed to ground ambulances (95.38%), followed by rotor-wing air ambulances (4.35%) and fixed-wing air ambulances (0.27%). Intubation success rates were comparable between fixed-wing air ambulances (89.66%) and rotor-wing air ambulances (89.17%)-however, they were significantly lower on ground ambulances (75.69%) (p < .001).

Our data show that flight crew members-either on fixed-wing or rotor-wing air ambulances-are associated with significantly higher rates of intubation success than ground ambulance providers. There are a number of possible explanations for this trend, including more opportunities to intubate in the air medical setting, increased clinical education focused on airway management in the air medical setting, or assistive technologies being more commonly used in the air medical setting.