The doctoral dissertation in the field of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine will be examined at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Kuopio Campus.
What is the topic of your doctoral research?
Centralising specialised care has been shown to improve outcomes across many fields of medicine. Helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) enable concentrating prehospital critical care to dedicated providers. This makes it possible to gain more experience in critical care events that are rarely encountered in the prehospital setting otherwise. So far, there has been little research on the provider volume-outcome relationship in this context.
What are the key findings or observations of your doctoral research?
We found that physicians with higher case volumes provided more active prehospital care. Among patients undergoing prehospital anaesthesia, mortality was lower among patients treated by a physician with a larger case volume in the preceding year. However, we did not see a similar volume-outcome relationship among patients undergoing prehospital post-resuscitation care.
How can the results of your doctoral research be utilised in practice?
Provider volume seems to be associated with survival in some prehospital critical care situations. Our results can be used to organise HEMS in a fashion that enables sufficient exposure to these events.
What are the key research methods and materials used in your doctoral research?
Since the national HEMS was established in 2012, details on all dispatches have been recorded in a shared database. This registry contains information on more than 100 000 missions. It has been utilised in several studies in recent years and as a part of FinnHEMS research and development.
The doctoral dissertation of Anssi Saviluoto, Licentiate of Medicine, entitled Provider volume in prehospital critical care, will be examined at the University of Eastern Finland. The Opponent in the public examination will be Professor Richard Lyon of the University of Surrey, and the Custos will be Professor Jouni Kurola of Kuopio University Hospital and the University of Eastern Finland. The public examination will be streamed online.