Standards and Developments in HEMS Across the Globe with Dr Vidar Magnusson

World Extreme Medicine Podcast

Dr. Vidar Magnusson is an anesthesiologist, intensivist and EMS physician in Reykjavik, Iceland. He is the current National Medical Director for pre-hospital services in Iceland, a post he held both between 2011- 2014, and again from 2016 to the present. He has extensive EMS and air-medical experience including serving as a medical officer with the British Army NATO coalition forces, ground EMS in Iceland and the Icelandic Coast Guard Medevac helicopter. He has worked in several air-medical systems in Europe including London HEMS, KSS HEMS and the Norwegian Air Ambulance. He represents Iceland in the Scandinavian Society for Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine (SSAI) prehospital guidelines group as well as the SSAI Critical Emergency Medicine (CrEM) postgraduate training program. In addition, he holds a master of business administration from Reykjavik University.

In this episode host Stephen Wood, a former HEMS paramedic, discusses the differences between air-medical systems in several parts of the world. The conversation starts with the London HEMS system, considered one of the best in the world. Vidar discusses the extensive training program, research and quality assurance that goes into this system. Stephen and Vidar discuss some of the differences of the U.S. based programs that less often feature physician-led teams and how the two compare. The Norwegian system was next on the agenda, another robust program but with a different crew configuration and design. Lastly, the pair chatted about the Icelandic system, which is new and up and coming, but still in a growth stage. Vidar and Stephen discussed some of the differences in HEMS requests, flight and weather operations. The conversation closes with a view of HEMS in the future, particularly for the Icelandic program, and how each would envision a robust HEMS program.

Links:

VIdar's Twitter @HEMSonICE

KSS HEMS https://www.aakss.org.uk/

London HEMS https://www.londonsairambulance.org.uk/

Norwegian Air Ambulance http://www.luftambulanse.no/about-national-air-ambulance-services-norway

ICG SAR/medevac helicopter team https://www.lhg.is/english/search-and-rescue/

SSAI Critical Emergency Medicine (CrEM) postgraduate training program

https://ssai.info/education/critical-emergency-medicine/