Emergency Medical Services resource capacity and competency amid COVID-19 in the United States: preliminary findings from a national survey

  1. Cody Gibson
  2. Christian Ventura
  3. George Donald Collier

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Abstract

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.24.20073296: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: An ethics approval was obtained and certified by the Institutional Review Board.
    RandomizationThe survey was randomly distributed to various active Emergency Medical Services (EMS) personnel in all 50 U.S. states including the District of Columbia (n=165).
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    The limitations of this study predominantly revolve around marginal error. The preliminary data suggests, however, that providers may benefit from improved standardized training in pandemic response, specifically with regard to clinical symptomatology recognition, origins of the disease, a uniformed decontamination protocol, pandemic-specific inventory inservice, and stricter regulations and enforcement on decontamination of personal items, such as stethoscopes. The employment of disposable stethoscopes for EMS providers may also prove beneficial in reducing spread of infection. The data also warrants investigation on the efficacy of currently practiced decontamination procedures, as well as the presence of pathogenic novel coronavirus on the surface area of EMS equipment. EMS providers appear to have differing views on whether they are at an increased risk for severe illness despite current research that suggests healthcare providers are at a significant risk (Ng K et al. 2020, Zou L, et al. 2020). Additionally, almost one-third of surveyed providers report being unsure whether a COVID-19 patient is infectious, and more than one-half of participants inaccurately identified a common symptom of COVID-19. Current practices to appropriately educate EMS providers on the novel coronavirus may not be sufficient, and families of providers and future patients may benefit from a nationally established COVID-19 EMS response protocol that complements or supersedes the recommendation of ...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03900
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.04.24.20073296v1 on medRxiv