Oyvind Thomassen

• MD, PhD
• Consultant at Haukeland University Hospital

Introduction Accidental hypothermia increases mortality in patients with traumatic injury, making hypothermia management essential in prehospital trauma care. Chemical heat blankets are commonly used for this purpose. These blankets require time to get warm, with agitation often used to accelerate the exothermic reaction. Many search and rescue tea...

Background Accidental hypothermia is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Research on treatment strategies for accidental hypothermia is complicated by the low incidence and heterogeneous patient population. We have developed a new method for clinical trials of experimental hypothermia, to enable further studies of active rewarming. If col...

Purpose The current geopolitical situation and climate changes accentuate the importance of health preparedness. The aim was to examine the in-hospital preparedness for Mass Casualty Incidents (MCI) and Major Incidents (MI) on a national level. Method A web-based, cross-sectional study of in-hospital preparedness for MCI/MI in Norway. All hospital...

Background Accidental hypothermia is associated with increased morbidity and mortality and poses a significant challenge for both professional and volunteer rescue services in prehospital settings. This study investigated the methods and equipment available to treat patients with cold stress or accidental hypothermia before reaching hospital in Nor...

Background Use of a vapor barrier in the prehospital care of cold-stressed or hypothermic patients aims to reduce evaporative heat loss and accelerate rewarming. The application of a vapor barrier is recommended in various guidelines, along with both insulating and wind/waterproof layers and an active external rewarming device; however, evidence of...

Background Prehospital care for cold-stressed and hypothermic patients focuses on effective insulation and rewarming. When encountering patients wearing wet clothing, rescuers can either remove the wet clothing before isolating the patient or isolate the patient using a vapor barrier. Wet clothing removal increases skin exposure but avoids the need...

Background Kiteboarding (kitesurfing on water and snowkiting) is a fairly new sport and is defined as a high-risk sport. The injury rate has been reported to be between 6 and 9 per 1000 h. The aim of the study was to identify and describe kiteboarding-related injuries in Norway over a five-year period. Methods We used “snowball sampling” to identi...

Purpose To investigate prehospital preparedness work for Mass Casualty Incidents (MCI) and Major Incidents (MI) in Norway. Method A national cross-sectional descriptive study of Norway’s prehospital MI preparedness through a web-based survey. A representative selection of Rescue and Emergency Services were included, excluding Non-Governmental Orga...

Background Survival from avalanche burial is dependent on time to extraction, breathing ability, air pocket oxygen content, and avoiding rebreathing of carbon dioxide (CO2). Mortality from asphyxia increases rapidly after burial. Rescue services often arrive too late. Our objective was to evaluate the physiological effects of providing personal air...

Background: Optimal prehospital management and treatment of patients with accidental hypothermia is a matter of frequent debate, with controversies usually revolving around the subject of rewarming. The rule of thumb in primary emergency care and first aid for patients with accidental hypothermia has traditionally been to be refrain from prehospit...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Aim Chest compression devices are useful during mountain rescue but may cause a delay in transport if not immediately available. The aims of this prospective observational study were to compare manual and mechanical cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) during transport on a sledge connected to a snowmobile with a non-moving setting and to compare CP...

Avalanches may be provoked spontaneously or as a result of human activity, and they trigger the need for considerable rescue resources. Avalanche search and rescue operations are complex and characterised by physical and mental stress. The guidelines for resuscitation of avalanche victims may be perceived as complex and abstruse, which can lead to...

Few pre-hospital services have the possibility to accurately measure core temperature (T core ). Non-invasive estimation of T core will improve pre-hospital decision-making regarding the triage and management of hypothermic patients. Thermistor-based tympanic temperature (T tymp ) correlates well with T core in controlled studies; however, little i...

Mnazi Mmoja Hospital is a tertiary hospital in Zanzibar serving a population of 1.2 million. The emergency department was overcrowded and understaffed and the hospital management initiated a quality improvement project. The aim of this article is to describe the approach, methods and main results of this quality improvement process. The Plan-Do-Stu...

Based on current weaknesses in the understanding of the mechanisms, factors and positive effects involved in checklist usage, as well as a scarcity of qualitative approaches, the aim of this study was to explore surgical personnel experiences with the World Health Organization’s Surgical Safety Checklist, 2 years after implementation. Three focus g...

The drive for effectiveness and productivity in health care combined with a high percentage of adverse events in hospitals occurring in the operating room, suggest that more knowledge about safety in surgery is warranted. As a step in this direction, explorations of safety in surgical operations should account for the unique operational perspective...

Safety checklists have become an established safety tool in medicine. Despite studies showing decreased mortality and complications, the effects and feasibility of checklists have been questioned. This systematic review summarises the medical literature aiming to show the effects of safety checklists with a number of outcomes. The Preferred Reporti...

Hypothermia is associated with increased morbidity and mortality in trauma patients and poses a challenge in pre-hospital treatment. The aim of this study was to identify equipment to prevent, diagnose, and treat hypothermia in Norwegian pre-hospital services. In the period of April-August 2011, we conducted a survey of 42 respondents representing...

[Article in Swedish] PMID: 23865267

AIMS: The role of ketamine anesthesia in the prehospital, emergency department and operating theater settings is not well defined. DISCUSSION: A nonsystematic review of ketamine was performed by authors from Australia, Europe, and North America. Results were discussed among authors and the final manuscript accepted. CONCLUSIONS: Ketamine is a usefu...

Abstract Background Adverse events are documented to affect more than one in 25 hospital patients. Medical mishaps and errors are rarely the result of incompetence, poor motivation or negligence but challenges on social and cognitive skills such as loss of situation awareness, poor communication, less than optimal teamwork, problematic stress manag...

Checklists are common in some medical fields, including surgery, intensive care and emergency medicine. They can be an effective tool to improve care processes and reduce mortality and morbidity. Despite the seemingly rapid acceptance and dissemination of the checklist, there are few studies describing the actual process of developing and implement...

Accidental hypothermia increases mortality and morbidity in trauma patients. Various methods for insulating and wrapping hypothermic patients are used worldwide. The aim of this study was to compare the thermal insulating effects and comfort of bubble wrap, ambulance blankets / quilts, and Hibler's method, a low-cost method combining a plastic oute...

Checklists have been used extensively as a cognitive aid in aviation; now, they are being introduced in many areas of medicine. Although few would dispute the positive effects of checklists, little is known about the process of introducing this tool into the health care environment. In 2008, a pre-induction checklist was implemented in our anaesthe...

A substantial proportion of anaesthesia-related adverse events are preventable by identification and correction of errors in planning, communication, fatigue, stress, and equipment. The aim of this study was to develop and implement a pre-induction checklist in order to identify and solve problems before induction of anaesthesia. The checklist was...

It is widely believed that placing a patient who has been subjected to suspension trauma in a horizontal position after rescue may cause rescue death. The discussion whether position is important has been dominated by non-medical personnel. Subsequently, this has led to a general advice on emergency treatment of these patients, which may cause inco...

Headache is the cardinal symptom of acute mountain sickness (AMS). The headache normally worsens, with increased cerebral affection and the development of high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE). A Norwegian expedition aimed to climb Baruntse (7129 m) in Nepal in 2003. At 5400 m a 35-year-old man felt exhausted. The next day he aborted his attempt at f...

Carbon monoxide (CO) is formed wherever incomplete combustion of carbonaceous products occurs.(1) CO is the leading cause of poisoning in the United States, and common sources of CO poisoning include housefires, automobile exhaust, water heaters, kerosene space heaters, and furnaces.(2) Stoves used for cooking and heating during outdoor activities...