Airway Management Success and Hypoxemia Rates in Air and Ground Critical Care Transport: a Prospective Multicenter Study

ABSTRACTObjective. To assess critical care transport (CCT) crews’ endotracheal intubation (ETI) attempts, success rates, and peri-ETI oxygenation. Methods. Participants were adult and pediatric patients undergoing attempted advanced airway management during the period from July 2007 to December 2008 by crews from 11 CCT programs varying in geography, crew configuration, and casemix; all crews had access to neuromuscular-blocking agents. Data collected included airway management variables defined per national consensus criteria. Descriptive analysis focused on ETI success rates (reported with exact binomial 95% confidence intervals [CIs]) and occurrence of new hypoxemia (oxygen saturation [SpO2] dropping below 90% during or after ETI); to assess categorical variables, Fisher's exact test, Pearson χ2, and logistic regression were employed to explore associations between predictor variables and ETI failure or new hypoxemia. For all tests, p < 0.05 defined significance. Results. There were 603 total attempts ...