Emergency Care, Heart Disease / 21.11.2014
Telephone CPR May Improve Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Survival
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Bentley Bobrow, MD,
Medical Director
Bureau of Emergency Medicine Services and Trauma System
Arizona Department of Health Services, Phoenix
Professor, University of Arizona
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Bobrow: Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest is a leading cause of death worldwide. There are nearly half a million EMS-assessed Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest s in the United States annually. Bystander CPR (B-CPR) before arrival of EMS can double or even triple survival from OHCA. Yet it occurs in only 1/3 of cases. Telephone CPR - the provision of B-CPR with a 9-1-1 telecommunicator's instructions - is independently associated with increased rates of Bystander CPR and patient survival and requires almost no capital investment. For this reason, we believe Telephone CPR may be THE most effective and efficient way to move the needle on OHCA survival. In order to achieve this potential, however, EMS systems must adopt the latest guideline recommendations for T-CPR and continuously measure system performance. Very few systems do this. The aim of our project was to do just this at multiple 9-1-1 centers in Arizona. We implemented the guidelines and measured the impact on process metrics and patient outcomes. Our findings confirmed what we expected: a significant increase in the proportion of cases where T-CPR was performed, a significant reduction in time from call-receipt to first bystander chest compression, and, most importantly, significant increases in patient survival and survival with positive neurologic outcome. (more…)