ABSTRACTS
Reviving Lives: Naloxone's Impact in Prehospital Care—A Falck EMT StudyAuthor: Michael Kaduce, Raj Vishal, Lyle Hanson, and Freddy Sotelo | | Associate Authors:
Introduction: Opioid overdoses account for 1 in every 50 emergency medical services (EMS) calls in the United States. Additionally, naloxone, an opioid antagonist, is being widely distributed to the public to block the cellular opioid receptors and reverse overdose effects. However, there is geographic variability in requiring naloxone on ambulances across the United States, ranging from no requirement to frequent administration and distribution to high-risk patients. With this increase in availability and variability of usage, trends change in the impact of naloxone in the prehospital setting. Objective: To describe the effects of naloxone administration over the past 10 months by Falck emergency medical technicians (EMTs). Methods: Descriptive statistics were calculated for all Falck ambulance–documented naloxone administrations in Orange and Los Angeles counties from July 2023 through May 2024. Falck, a global healthcare company, is the region's primary 9-1-1 response and transport agency and is staffed by EMTs. Chi-square analysis was used to compare patient improvement with an alpha level of .05 to determine statistical significance. Results: Administration of naloxone was documented 65 times during the study period. Patient improvement, as assessed by the EMT, was reported to have occurred in 46 (70.8%) incidents, which was statistically significant (p < .001) when chi-square analysis was performed. A Falck EMT was the first clinician to arrive at 43 (66.2%) incidents, and when a Falck EMT was the first-arriving clinician, patient improvement was seen in 32 (74.4%) incidents (χ2 [1, N = 43] = 0.777, p = .375). Conclusion: Although naloxone and opioid overdose awareness education is widely available to the public, little has been published on EMS use of naloxone since its widespread distribution. Our study demonstrated that the continued use of naloxone by EMS and other first responders provides improvement to patients suffering from an opioid overdose. Additionally, the safety of EMT administration warrants continued support for naloxone in EMT-staffed ambulances.
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