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Some European prehospital systems employ physician-led teams, often dispatched via helicopter. Prehospital care in the U.S. consists almost exclusively of paramedics. Whether physician-led prehospital care reduces mortality is controversial.
These authors retrospectively reviewed a large trauma database comprising multiple trauma centers in northern England for the period 2014–2017. Only severely injured patients (Injury Severity Score ≥9 or other high-risk features) were included. Patients treated prehospital by a team consisting of a physician and critical care paramedic were compared with those treated by paramedic alone. Mortality in each group was compared against predicted mortality using logistic regression.
Patients in the physician-t…