Overview

The aim of the study is, on the one hand, to objectively investigate the patient-oriented benefits of prehospital point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) examinations under the conditions of the helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) in Switzerland. On the other hand, the study will show what the diagnostic quality of prehospital POCUS examinations is and how emergency medical teams can be trained to use POCUS in the future.

HEMS crew members will answer a short online questionaire about how findings of their POCUS examination has influenced their medical treatment, diagnosis and selection of target hospital for the patient (primary outcome parameters).

In addition, a study nurse will query the findings of the in-hospital diagnostic tests and compare them with the findings of the pre-hospital POCUS examination. This will enable the investigators to evaluate the diagnostic quality of the prehospital POCUS examination and to identify which findings are often not recognised in the POCUS. The subjective satisfaction and assessment of the benefit of the POCUS examination by the respective users will also be recorded (secondary outcome parameters).

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• All patients in whom the treating Rega team uses POCUS pre-hospital
• existing written General Consent (with permission to use patient data for research)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Age <18 years