Development and evaluation of a point-of-care ultrasound curriculum for paramedics in Germany - a prospective observational study and comparison

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is steadily growing in use in prehospital emergency medicine. While currently used primarily by emergency physicians, POCUS could also be employed by paramedics to support diagnosis and decision-making. Yet to date, no paramedicine-targeted POCUS curricula exist in Germany. Furthermore, given time and resource constraints in paramedic training, it is unclear whether paramedics could feasibly learn POCUS for prehospital deployment. Hence, this study outlines the development and implementation of a comprehensive POCUS curriculum for paramedics. Through this curriculum, we investigate whether paramedics can attain proficiency in POCUS comparable to other user groups. In this prospective observational study, we first developed a blended learning-based POCUS curriculum specifically for paramedics, focusing on basic principles, the RUSH-Protocol and ultrasound guided procedures. Participants underwent digital tests to measure their theoretical competence before (T1) and after the digital preparation phase (T2), as well as at the end of the on-site phase (T3). At time point T3, we additionally measured practical competence using healthy subjects and simulators. We compared the theoretical competence and the practical competence on a simulator with those of physicians and medical students who had also completed ultrasound training. Furthermore, we carried out self-assessment evaluations, as well as evaluations of motivation and curriculum satisfaction. The paramedic study group comprised n = 72 participants. In the theoretical test, the group showed significant improvement between T1 and T2 (p