Critical care paramedics: who's doing what?

This systematic review conducted in 2013 is an interesting read for anyone involved, or wishing to be involved, in the pre-hospital care of critically injured patients and the emerging role of UK critical care paramedics (CCPs) in the delivery of advanced level skills in this subset of patients.

The authors searched four large electronic databases (CENTRAL, EMBASE, MEDLINE, Web of Science) without language limitation for relevant papers from 1990 to January 2013 (date restriction not applied to hand searches); a detailed search history is included in the paper which is a useful adjunct for the reader.

The authors identified 3 871 titles, with 609 of these being considered as potentially relevant. Ultimately, after further review processes, a total of 12 papers were deemed eligible for inclusion in this review, including one randomised controlled trial, 10 retrospective cohort studies, and one quasi-randomised cohort study. The papers were appraised using the Oxford Centre of Evidence-based Medicine guidelines.