The Development and Evaluation of the Efficacy for Echo-assisted Advanced Life Support Advanced Life Support (eALS)

The Development and Evaluation of the Efficacy for Echo-assisted Advanced Life Support Advanced Life Support (eALS)

The investigators conduct this project for integrating the point-of care ultrasound skill (POCUS) in to the American Heart Association (AHA) Advanced Cardiopulmonary Life Support (ACLS) guidelines and other critical conditions. Through lecture, head-on practice and scenario simulations, junior physicians who are the participants would be more familiar with the practice of POCUS in the settings of resuscitation and on the critical condition patients. The investigators aimed to increased the success rate of resuscitation and improve the outcomes of critical condition patients.

The investigators also try to make a template of ultrasound education in the board of emergency medicine and critical care medicine.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Education of Ultrasound
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: echo-assisted advanced life support

Detailed Description

Advanced life support (ALS) is an important training course for junior physicians to learn how to manage critical patients. Ultrasound is an indispensable and easily accessible tool in emergency departments and critical care settings. Current guidelines suggested that ultrasound could be an integral part of resuscitative medicine. However, structured training is needed for better efficacy of ultrasound use during clinical use. The aim of this project is to incorporate ultrasound into the ALS course, including common critical diseases, such as dyspnea, shock, major trauma and cardiac arrests. Junior physicians at the National Taiwan University Hospital will be enrolled in this study as participants. Through lectures and hand-on practice, the junior physicians could be familiar with managing critical patients with ultrasound assistance. This study will be lasted for two years. In the 1st year, the investigators will establish the echo-assisted ALS (eALS) training course, set up assessment modules and simulation scenarios. In the 2nd year, the investigators will provide the formal eALS training course for 4 to 6 times, analyze the data and establish on-line learning modules. In addition, the investigators will promote the eALS course to other hospitals and other countries.

This pioneer study can provide experience of eALS training course and contribute to current medical education. Moreover, it can improve decision-making process and quality of care of the participants. Furthermore, the integrated on-line learning programs can be used to lessen the maturation time of the participants and would provide them to other departments and hospitals to improve patients' care.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 120
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Wan-Ching Lien, MD., PhD.; Phone Number: 65637 +886-23123456; Email: wangchinglien@ntu.edu.tw
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Chih-Heng Chang, MD.

Study Locations

• Taiwan
  • Taipei, Taiwan, 100
    • Recruiting
    • National Taiwan University Hospital
    • Contact: Chih-Heng Chang, MD.; Email: herman90021@msn.com
    • Sub-Investigator: Chih-Heng Chang, MD.
    • Principal Investigator: Chien-Hua Huang, MD., PhD.
    • Principal Investigator: Pei-Chuan Huang, MD.

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• all physicians or health care providers who are not well-experienced in the board of any kind of ultrasound

Exclusion Criteria:

• nil

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Diagnostic
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Intervention group; Participants who join the class of eALS	Behavioral: echo-assisted advanced life support; Integrated point-of-care ultrasound skill in to the setting of resuscitation, and critical condition patients. Educate the participants to use these protocols and monitoring if there were improvement of patient's outcomes

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
The improvement of performance of participant in the practicing of ultrasound	Compare the pre-lecture written test and a post-lecture written test results. There is also a hands-on examination after the lecture, to evaluate the participants skills, by using scoring sheets.	32 weeks

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Cardiac arrest patients ROSC rates	The rate of return of spontaneous circulation of cardiac arrest patients before and after the lecture	32 weeks
Length of stay (hours) in the emergency department	We proposed that the disposition of patient would be faster after the lecture. We would try to compare the length of stay (hours) in the ED before and after the lecture	up to 32 weeks
diagnostic accuracy of the participants after training	sensitivity and specificity for acute chest pain and dyspnea, comparing with the final diagnosis. The final diagnosis was made by the retrospective chart review by the experts.	4 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: National Taiwan University Hospital
• Investigators: Study Chair: Department of Emergency medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): November 1, 2019
• Primary Completion (Anticipated): July 31, 2021
• Study Completion (Anticipated): July 31, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: October 27, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 1, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): November 4, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): July 29, 2021
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 25, 2021
• Last Verified: July 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: ultrasound; point-of-care ultrasound; advanced life support; echo-assisted advanced life support
• Other Study ID Numbers: 201812023RINA

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No