The Epidemiology of Out-of-Hospital Pediatric Airway Management in the 2019 ESO Data Collaborative

Airway management is a fundamental skill that Emergency Medical Services (EMS) clinicians must be prepared to perform on patients of any age. We performed one of the first epidemiological studies of out-of-hospital pediatric airway management utilizing the ESO data set.

We used the 2019 ESO Data Collaborative public release research data set. We performed a descriptive analysis of all patients <18 years receiving at least one of the following airway management interventions: nasopharyngeal airway, oropharyngeal airway, noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (NIPPV), airway suctioning, bag-valve-mask ventilation (BVM), tracheal intubation (TI), supraglottic airway (SGA) or surgical airway placement. We determined the success rates for BVM, TI and SGA.

Among 7,422,710 911 EMS activations, there were 346,912 pediatric encounters that resulted in patient care. Airway management occurred in 27,071 encounters (7,803 per 100,000 pediatric EMS patient care events). Use of BVM, intubation or supraglottic airway insertion occurred in 3,496 encounters (1,007 per 100,000 pediatric EMS patient care events). Ventilation with BVM occurred in 2,226 encounters (642 per 100,000 pediatric EMS patient care events), TI in 935 pediatric EMS patient care encounters (270 per 100,000 patient care encounters), and supraglottic airway insertion in 335 patient encounters (97 per 100,000 patient care encounters). Overall TI success was 71.4%, rapid sequence intubation success was 86.3%, and SGA success was 87.2%. Overall TI first pass success rate was 63.1%.

In the ESO cohort, advanced airway management of children occurred in only 5.9 in 10,000 911 emergency encounters. Overall and first pass success rates for TI were low. These data provide contemporary perspectives of pediatric prehospital airway management in the United States.