Paramedic Papers Daily — 14 October 2026

Two papers today. Paper one — a systematic review pitting mechanical ventilation against the manual bag in adult cardiac arrest. Paper two — community paramedic referrals from primary care cut ambulance transports, ED visits and admissions.

Paper one — Resuscitation. This is a systematic review and Bayesian meta-analysis comparing mechanical ventilators against manual bag-valve ventilation during CPR in adults. It goes to the heart of a question crews settle by habit — who's on the bags, and does the machine do it better. The catch: the abstract isn't out yet, so there are no pooled numbers to weigh up. Without effect sizes or study details, this one stays hypothesis-generating — worth watching when the full text lands, because ventilation during arrest is universal prehospital practice and the answer speaks directly to everyday resuscitation care.

Paper two — Population Health Management. A before-and-after cohort from a large urban fire department in the United States, where primary care medical homes referred patients to a community paramedicine program. Sixty-eight people completed it, across three hundred and twenty-one visits, with a four-visit model covering hypertension, diabetes, asthma and COPD, and heart failure. The numbers that jump out: compared with the six months before enrolment, nine-one-one ambulance transports fell forty-three per cent, ED visits fell forty-six per cent, and hospital admissions fell forty-two per cent. Most graduates reported feeling better, and most said community paramedics improved their overall experience of care. Now, the caveat matters — there's no control group, so regression to the mean almost certainly inflates those reductions. People get referred when they're at their worst, and things drift back. Still, the direction of travel is consistent with what community paramedicine programs are finding as the model grows here in Australia — even if the funding structure around this one doesn't map cleanly onto Australian ambulance services.

Quick recap. One — a Bayesian meta-analysis on mechanical versus manual bagging in adult CPR is out, but without the abstract there's nothing pooled to report yet. Two — community paramedic referrals from primary care were followed by forty-three per cent fewer ambulance transports, though a no-control-group design tempers the enthusiasm.

That's the roundup for Wednesday the fourteenth of October. Papers on the dashboard. Back tomorrow.