Nurses and advanced airway management: the experience of the Piacenza ambulance service

The study examined the intubation manoeuvres performed by Piacenza local health authority ambulance service nurses in patients with sudden cardiac arrest of nontraumatic origin. The study has a retrospective observational design and analyzes all the intubation manoeuvres performed by ambulance service nurses in patients with non-traumatic cardiac arrest between January 2010 and December 2013. The success of the procedure with subglottic tubes was 97.7% (P>0.60), while it was 100% (P>0.50) with supraglottic devices. The success rate of the procedures is encouraging and the statistical analysis showed that there are no significant differences between literature data and the experience of Piacenza ambulance system crews. An increase in the use of supraglottic devices was also observed. The results show that the Piacenza ambulance service nursing staff has a good level of skills and competence in advanced airway management. A future development of this ability could involve intubation also in situations other than cardiac arrest using specific medication.