Use of the SCRAM Bag in Emergency Airway Management
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Does the SCRAM Bag Facilitate a Quicker and more Reproducible Emergency Airway Kit Dump in the Non-Theatre Environment?
IRAS ID
224359
Contact name
Barry M Schyma
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
NHS Lothian
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 2 months, 1 days
Research summary
Airway management, facilitating a conduit between the atmosphere and the lungs, is a time critical life saving manoeuvre. Managing an airway emergency requires significant preparation. The operating theatre and emergency department use 'difficult airway' trolleys to facilitate this. Airway emergencies, however, do not only occur in these locations and are frequently seen in other areas of the hospital. The equipment may not be available at these locations, but the same high standard required. It is stored on a resuscitation trolley - which is difficult and confusing to select the correct equipment from. Delays in setting up equipment and errors made during the progress may impact on patient outcome. The use of cognitive aids may reduce both the error rate and time taken to prepare for an airway intervention.
The SCRAM Bag is such a cognitive aid which displays equipment in an ergonomic way with specific prompts to reduce omission error. It is portable and thus can be brought to any location within the hospital. It is currently being used within pre-hospital NHS services and many NHS trusts are interested in its use within the hospital environment. It is not currently being used within our trust.
We will use a simulated environment to test the time taken to prepare equipment and error rate when using the portable SCRAM bag compared with using a standard resuscitation trolly (as would be found on many wards).
REC name
N/A
REC reference
N/A