A Mobile Device App to Reduce Prehospital Medication Errors and Time to Drug Preparation and Delivery by EMS During Simulated Pediatric Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation: a Multicenter, Prospective, Randomized, Controlled Trial

Children represent a vulnerable population with specific medical needs compared to adults. Fast, accurate, and safe preparation and administration of IV drugs is both complex and time consuming in pediatric critical situations, such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Most drugs given IV to children are provided in vials originally prepared for the adult population, which leads to the need for a specific individual, weight-based drug dose calculation and preparation for each child that varies widely across age groups. This error-prone process and the lower dosing error tolerance of children place them at a high risk for life-threatening medication errors. Despite well equipped and staffed environments with numerous available safeguards, direct IV medication errors have been reported in up to 41% of cases during simulated in-hospital pediatric resuscitations, 65% of which were incorrect medication dosage, making it the most common error. The rate of errors is also important in the prehospital setting, occurring in more than 30% of all pediatric drugs administered. As paramedics have little exposure to critically ill children, they have limited opportunities to administer resuscitation drugs at pediatric doses and to train this skill.

Moreover, in resuscitation, time is inversely correlated to survival. During the first 15 min of in-hospital pediatric CPR, survival and favorable neurological outcome decrease linearly by 2,1% and 1,2% per min, respectively, and rely in part on drug preparation time either in- or out-of-hospital. Among non-shockable pediatric out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, each minute delay to epinephrine delivery is associated with 9% decrease in the odds of survival. Regrettably, in the prehospital setting, the majority of patients receive epinephrine more than 10 minutes after EMS arrival. The chain of survival therefore critically relies on early out-of-hospital CPR by EMS, and onsite administration of IV emergency drugs without delay before a rapid transfer to pediatric emergency departments and advanced care.

In a previous multicenter, randomized crossover trial, medication errors, time to drug preparation, and time to drug delivery for continuous infusions during simulation-based pediatric in-hospital postcardiac arrest scenarios were significantly reduced by using a mobile device app - the pediatric accurate medication in emergency situations (PedAMINES™) app - designed to help pediatric drug preparation.

The present multicenter trial aims to compare the impact of this app with conventional calculation methods for the preparation of direct IV drugs during standardized, simulation-based, pediatric out-of-hospital cardiac arrest scenarios. The investigators hypothesized that use of the app might extend and scale up the previous multicenter in-hospital observations by similarly reducing occurrence of medication errors and time to drug preparation and delivery when used by paramedics in out-of-hospital settings.

In this trial, the investigators will recruit paramedics in many EMS in Switzerland to prepare direct IV emergency drugs during a standardized simulation-based pediatric out-of-hospital cardiac arrest scenario with a high-fidelity WiFi manikin (Laerdal SimBaby). The scenario will take place out-of-hospital in a simulated children's room to increase realism.