Sriram Ramgopal, Robert J Sepanski, Jillian K Gorski, Pradip P Chaudhari, Ryan G Spurrier, Christopher M Horvat, Michelle L Macy, Rebecca Cash, Christian Martin-Gill
OBJECTIVE: The shock index (SI), the ratio of heart rate to systolic blood pressure, is a clinical tool for assessing injury severity. Age-adjusted SI models may improve predictive value for injured children in the out-of-hospital setting. We sought to characterize the proportion of children in the prehospital setting with an abnormal SI using established criteria, describe the age-based distribution of SI among injured children, and determine prehospital interventions by SI. METHODS: We performed a multi-agency retrospective cross-sectional study of children (<18 years) in the prehospital setting with a scene encounter for suspected trauma and transported to the hospital between 2018 and 2022 using the National Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Information System datasets...
April 3, 2024: American Journal of Emergency Medicine