Cabin temperature during prehospital patient transport \u2013 a prospective observational study

Tuva Svendsen,Knut Fredriksen,Inger Lund-Kordahl

doi:10.1186/s13049-020-00759-0

Abstract

BackgroundFew studies have investigated the patient compartment temperatures during ambulance missions or its relation to admission hypothermia. Still hypothermia is a known risk factor for increased mortality and morbidity in both trauma and disease. This has special relevance to our sub-arctic region’s pre-hospital services, and we prospectively studied the environmental temperature in the patient transport compartment in both ground and air ambulances.MethodsWe recorded cabin temperature during patient transport in two ground ambulances and one ambulance helicopter in the catchment area of the University Hospital of North Norway using automatic temperature loggers. The data were collected for one month in each of the four seasons. We calculated the sum of degrees Celsius below 18 min by minute to describe the patient exposure to unfavourably low cabin temperature, and present the data as box plots. The statistical differences between transport mode and season were analysed with ANCOVA.ResultsThe recorded cabin temperatures were higher during the summer than the other three seasons. However, we also found that helicopter transports were performed at lower cabin temperatures and with significantly more exposure to unfavourably low temperatures than the ground ambulance transports. Furthermore, the helicopter cabin reached the final temperature much slower than the ground ambulance cabins did or remained at a lower than comfortable temperature.ConclusionsHelicopter cabin temperature during ambulance missions should be monitored closer, particularly for patients at risk for developing admission hypothermia.

Highlights

Few studies have investigated the patient compartment temperatures during ambulance missions or its relation to admission hypothermia
Because of the apparent lack of studies on ambient temperature conditions during patient transport, and the clear relevance this has to prehospital care in our subarctic setting, we have prospectively investigated the cabin temperature in ground and air ambulances during patient transports at different outdoor temperatures
The highest discrepancy between temperatures was found in the ground ambulances

Summary

Introduction

Few studies have investigated the patient compartment temperatures during ambulance missions or its relation to admission hypothermia. Still hypothermia is a known risk factor for increased mortality and morbidity in both trauma and disease This has special relevance to our sub-arctic region’s pre-hospital services, and we prospectively studied the environmental temperature in the patient transport compartment in both ground and air ambulances. Even mild hypothermia is an additional physiologic burden for the acutely ill or injured patient [2] This has particular relevance for the long-distance prehospital transports in the Northern regions of Scandinavia, the incidence of admission hypothermia may be essentially the same for severely injured or diseased patients in different world regions, and it seems to be a constant threat during all seasons [1, 3,4,5,6,7]. The patients self-reported thermal discomfort was the most disturbing experience during the perioperative period [8]

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Discussion

Conclusion