Intraosseous (IO) Access Review for Paramedics and EMTs

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On a recent MedicCast EMS Podcast episode, the subject of intraosseous (IO) access for EMS providers was reviewed by host Jamie Davis, the Podmedic.

Here is a transcript of some of the discussion and review information.  You will find more links and information at the episode link above.

EMS Podcast Episode Transcript

Let's move on to this week’s Tip of the Week and this week’s Tip of the Week.  This week let's talk about intraosseous IO access and EMS providers in the field. Our good friend Jerry Barrett down in Australia sent in this tip idea in and it’s something I really haven’t covered a lot of in recent shows.

I think it’s probably been over a year since I’ve covered anything about I.O. access and it’s something that we should be aware of. It’s an alternative to our normal EMS I.V. access points that is available to us in our most critical patients and provides us a quick and easy route of medication administration, fluid bolus and just basic patient access that we can use when time is against us. We shouldn’t be fiddling around. We’re trying to find I.V. access in a patient who may have little or no blood pressure present to lift a vein enough to visualize or palpate.

The American Heart Association has discussed IO access for cardiac arrest patients in their most recent guidelines for ALS treatment. They say that I.O. access should be considered. We shouldn’t be playing around with getting I.V. access in a patient with difficult venous access points.

This is something that we should review and recover and understand because even if you’re a BLS provider, you should understand why I.O. access is such an important point to us in the ALS care arena, and be prepared to help us get the sites available, and protect those sites adequately once we have access. Because obviously once you’re going to the trouble of getting I.O. access, you don’t want to have anything dislodged or cause an issue with that I.O. access point because, clearly, it’s a point of access that we don’t want to have to do, again, if we don’t have to.

So what do we want to talk about? I found some good resources for I.O. access and there’ll be links in the show notes, so I urge you to head over to the MedicCast blog, find the “Podcast” category—“EMT Podcast” category there—and look up the links for this week’s show notes because you will be able to find a lot of other information that I’ve been able to discover for you.

Stay tuned for more on IO access for EMTs and paramedics here and at the MedicCast EMS Podcast.