Prehospital intravenous line placement assessment in the French emergency system: a prospective study

Background and objective: Out‐of‐hospital intravenous line placement is used daily. All available studies take place using paramedics, e.g. US‐American emergency medical system. The aim of this study was to assess the intravenous line placement feasibility (time and success rate) in the French emergency medical system. Methods: A prospective observational study was performed by a French out‐of‐hospital team during 3‐month assessing the timing and success rates for intravenous line placement. All patients were enrolled at the emergency medical service of a university hospital in France. Six hundred and sixty‐nine consecutive patients were included, 388 (58%) had at least one intravenous line placement in the out‐of‐hospital setting. Results: Success rate was 76% at the first attempt and 98% at the second attempt. The overall success rate for intravenous line placement was 99.7% (only one failure), and the average successful intravenous line time was 4.4 ± 2.8 min. Attempts ranged from 1 to 8. The time for intravenous line placement with blood sampling (58% of patients) is statistically longer than without (4.6 ± 2.5 vs. 4.3 ± 3 min, P < 0.05). Seventeen of the enrolled patients were trauma patients, and 83% were non‐trauma patients. Four hundred and twenty‐seven intravenous lines were placed, intravenous 10% had more than one intravenous line. Seventy‐one percent of the intravenous lines were used to infuse drugs, the others were security intravenous. No significant difference was noticed between trauma and non‐trauma patients in regard to the success rate and the time to place the intravenous line. Conclusion: The out‐of‐hospital team was skilled at intravenous line placement (success rate = 99.7%), and the time required to performed intravenous line access was short.