Resuscitation Council (UK) fund prehospital cardiac ultrasound project

Posted by Gareth Clegg, Matt Reed | 02 Apr 2014

The RRG have embarked on a one year project to investigate the role of cardiac ultrasound in prehospital management of OHCA. 
 
This January, Dr Matt Reed from the Emergency Medicine Research Group at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh was awarded nearly £20,000 by the Resuscitation Council (UK) to fund a one year project with collaborators Gareth Clegg, Richard Lyon, Rachel O’Brien and Steven Short from the Resuscitation Research Group, Colin Crookston from the Scottish Ambulance Service and Jim Connolly from the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
 

The project, known as the PUCA (Paramedic Ultrasound in Cardiac Arrest) study will look at the feasibility of training 3RU (Resuscitation Rapid Response Unit) paramedics in focussed Echo in Life Support (ELS) during out of hospital cardiac arrest . We also plan to observe in real time, the change in cardiac echo characteristics from when the 3RU team arrive shortly after cardiac arrest, until the patient reaches hospital.

The initial phases of the project are underway with selection of a suitable ultrasound machine to use in the demanding the pre-hospital environment and initial echo training of the study team. During the next phase of the project, the study team will start collecting cardiac images in the pre-hospital arena, and by summer, will embark on training the 3RU paramedics. An exciting project hoping to further improve the quality of pre-hospital cardiac arrest care in Edinburgh.