Paramedic PapersHome Operations & systems On-site CT slashes event transports
Operations & systems
On-site CT slashes event transports
Impact of on-site mobile CT imaging on prehospital patient management during the Munich Oktoberfest: a retrospective observational before–after study at a mass gathering
BMC Emergency Medicine · 2026-10-06 · Added 7 October 2026
Retrospective before–after study at the Munich Oktoberfest found an on-site mobile CT led to 429 of 498 imaged patients (86%) being treated and discharged on-site, avoiding an estimated 22,737 minutes of EMS deployment time.
- Study type
- Cohort
- Design
- Retrospective observational before–after
- Participants
- 498 patients imaged on-site
- Main finding
- 429 of 498 (86%) discharged on-site after imaging; 52 (10%) required hospital transport; 429 EMS transports and ~22,737 minutes of EMS deployment time avoided versus the pre-CT period
- Caveat
- Retrospective design with a historical (2015–2019) comparator — case-mix and event differences could explain part of the effect
- Bottom line
- Context only
Why it matters in Australia (Low relevance). On-site CT is an in-hospital tool deployed within a physician-staffed European mass-gathering medical model — nothing comparable operates in Australian ambulance practice.
Learning goal
Understand how on-site advanced imaging at mass gatherings can reduce unnecessary hospital transports and resource demands.
More
- Topic: Operations & systems
- Daily scan: 7 October 2026
- Podcast: Paramedic Papers Daily, 7 October 2026
Related papers on Operations & systems
-
Priority transport in multi-patient crashes: sicker, not harmed
Across 143,130 patients in Japanese traffic multi-patient incidents, priority (first-out) transport carried a 2.2-point adjusted risk difference for death or severe injury that peaked at 6.4 points with short scene times — a severity-selection signature rather than evidence of harm from early transport.
-
EMS dashboards: thin crisis evidence
Scoping review of 26 studies found EMS performance dashboards are used almost exclusively for routine operations — only one study addressed crisis conditions and it used no dashboard.
-
AI telephone triage protocol for EMS calls
Protocol for the trIAje project, a Spanish retrospective cohort linking 2020–2024 dispatch records, ePCRs and health-registry data to evaluate and then improve AI-assisted telephone triage of time-sensitive conditions using NLP on dispatcher call text.
-
Patients report prehospital safety incidents
Structured telephone interviews 15–20 days after EMS transport across eight Spanish provincial services characterised patient safety incidents reported by patients and witnesses, covering near misses and no-harm events as well as harm.