Medical News: Emergency Medicine

SAEM: AHA Guidelines for Cardiac Arrest Treatment Increase Survival
By Todd Neale, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: May 30, 2008
Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco

WASHINGTON, May 30 — The rate of resuscitation after out-of-hospital cardiac arrests jumped nearly four-fold when new guidelines on CPR were fully implemented in a
North Carolina county, according to researchers here.

The 2005 American Heart Association guidelines outlined a protocol calling for simple, continuous chest compressions, controlled ventilation, and early use of induced hypothermia.

When the guidelines were fully implemented in Wake County, which has urban and suburban areas and a population of about 815,000, cardiac arrest survival increased 3.99-fold (95% CI 2.19 to 7.27), Brent Myers, M.D., M.P.H., medical director of the Emergency Medical Services System in Raleigh, N.C., reported at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine meeting here.

Overall survival increased from 2.4% using older guidelines to 6.7% after introduction of the full 2005 AHA protocol. He said that “the neurologic improvement was at least as robust as the survival improvement.” The entire protocol was introduced for less than $200 per patient, he said. “All of these changes are simple, they are inexpensive, and they are incredibly effective,” he said.

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Source reference:
Hinchey P, et al “Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival after the sequential implementation of 2005 AHA guidelines for compressions, ventilations, and induced hypothermia” SAEM Meeting 2008; Abstract 167.