The co-inventor of two new versions of the SCRAM™ (Structured CRitical Airway Management) Bag has announced their life-saving benefits to a worldwide podcast audience

An Emergency Department Intensivist from New York, Dr Scott Weingart – whose EMCrit podcast is well-known globally in the emergency anaesthesia community and has been downloaded 40 million times – collaborated on the expansion of the successful SCRAM™ emergency airway management portfolio.

With fellowships in Trauma, Surgical Critical Care and Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), Dr Weingart was closely involved in the development of Resus SCRAM™ and Crash Rx SCRAM™ – working alongside the original SCRAM™ co-inventor and Glasgow-based helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) paramedic Paul Swinton as well as InnoScot Health.

The episode – entitled ‘Resus SCRAM Kit Dump Bag, Crash RX Drug Bag, and the Equipment I prefer for Resuscitative Intubation’ – heard Dr Weingart outline the ability of SCRAM™ to optimise the rapid sequence induction in trauma patients in the pre-hospital environment – and how the two versatile new bags will take those original benefits and further enhance their capabilities.

Dr Weingart said of the Resus SCRAM™ bag and its focus around the utilisation of video laryngoscopy: “It’s a product that I helped develop and that I am really proud of.

“When I saw it, I thought, ‘This is great, but it’s not built for the way that I do airway management in the emergency department of the ICU.’ There are a few things that are different.

“So with those differences and really just the way I wanted airway to be managed, Paul was kind enough to work with me to develop a SCRAM™ Resus bag – a bag for the resuscitationists in the hospital.

“What this really did was just accomplish everything I needed in front of me for airway management. Instead of having to stock in order to set up to do the intubation, you’re doing your set up after the intubation – that’s really the key.

“Open it up, it’s dumped right in front of you, you’re ready to go. That’s why I really wanted to develop this bag and actually make it a reality for the hospital, the way I do it.”

The innovative Resus SCRAM™ is designed for institutions and systems that offer video laryngoscopy as a primary modality of emergency airway management.

Key features include:

• a stencilled kit dump which standardises layout and allows efficient pre-stocking
• a secondary, removable, “difficult airway” kit dump and removable trach pouch
• new mechanism for the storage of bougies
• auditing options of unique barcode, checklist pocket and RFID/NFC pocket
• the Fidlock system on the front of the bag is compatible with CRASH Rx™, designed to contain drugs for emergency anaesthesia
• lockable zips compatible with tamperproof seals

The new CRASH Rx SCRAM™ bag meanwhile focuses on the classification of drugs needed to perform emergency anaesthesia, providing a platform to simplify and standardise the intervention.

Its key features include:

• compatible with pre-filled syringes, ampoules, vials or a mixture
• colour coded and labelled sections of the bag to store each drug classification
• secondary access section
• auditing options of unique barcode, checklist pocket and RFID/NFC pocket
• lockable zips compatible with tamperproof seals
• visible expiry date window
• the Fidlock system on the back of the bag is compatible with Resus SCRAM™

Paul said: “SCRAM™ enhances the performance of airway management by focusing on process improvement through design.

“Systemisation, standardisation, cognitive offloading, human factors, and good governance are at the core of its success.

“Such benefits have been of particular importance during the pandemic with increased cognitive demands placed on individuals, teams, the environment, and the associated risks of error and time to intervention.

“Resus SCRAM™ and CRASH Rx SCRAM™ represent further important, innovation-driven steps forward for the portfolio – Resus SCRAM™ when video laryngoscopy is utilised, and CRASH Rx SCRAM™ for simplifying and standardising drug classification.

“I believe that my own knowledge married to that of Scott and InnoScot Health has made for two strong new additions to the portfolio.”

Innovation Manager at InnoScot Health, Marianne Murphy said: “We are proud to have had such a long-standing relationship with Paul and to have been able to contribute to the development of the SCRAM™ portfolio which continues to go from strength to strength.

“Resus SCRAM™ and CRASH Rx SCRAM™ are cutting edge additions to an already well-established success story, and we are in no doubt that supplementing that existing knowledge base with Scott’s deep expertise will only enhance the portfolio’s reputation while helping to open up fresh global opportunities.”

The SCRAM™ Bag was first developed alongside InnoScot Health, then manufactured and distributed by Openhouse Products Ltd for pre-hospital emergency airway management and tracheal intubation, reducing error, time to intervention, and cognitive load.

Co-inventor of SCRAM™, Paul Swinton did his MSc in Trauma Sciences through Queen Mary University of London.

SCRAM™ is now being used by high performance teams in both hospital and pre-hospital environments in the UK and internationally to enhance the performance of emergency airway management across the spectrum of age.

For SCRAM™ enquiries outside of the UK, Openhouse can direct customers to the distributor covering their country/region.