Physician compliance with advanced cardiac life support guidelines.
OBJECTIVE
To determine compliance with advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) guidelines among ACLS-certified and non-ACLS-certified physicians.


METHODS
Retrospective review of consecutive cardiac arrests between July 1989 and June 1990, including assessment of the resuscitation leaders' ACLS certification.


METHODS
All nontraumatic prehospital and hospital cardiac arrests in a rural university hospital.


RESULTS
Two hundred seven arrests were studied for a total of 436 rhythms with a maximum of 4 rhythms per arrest. There were 78 resuscitations (36.3%) with return of spontaneous circulation. A total of 2,038 interventions were recorded for all rhythms, with 1,320 (64.8%) compliant with ACLS guidelines compared with 718 (35.2%) deviations. Synchronized cardioversion, calcium chloride and sodium bicarbonate were used with significantly higher noncompliance. Ventricular fibrillation had significantly higher mean rhythm deviation scores, whereas scores were significantly lower for sinus rhythm and stable bradycardia (P < .003). Resuscitations led by ACLS-certified and non-ACLS-certified physicians were compared for mean number of deviations per resuscitation attempt, and no differences were found. Resuscitations with return of spontaneous circulation were compared with unsuccessful resuscitations, and there was no difference between groups in controlled deviation scores. No differences could be found between ACLS-certified and non-ACLS-certified physicians for return of spontaneous circulation and survival-to-discharge rates.


CONCLUSIONS
Despite biannual ACLS training of all medical residents and ICU nurses, noncompliance with ACLS guidelines was noted in 35.2% of treatments. We found no correlation between ACLS certification and ACLS guideline compliance.
Cline
D M
DM
Department of Emergency Medicine, Wake Medical Center, Raleigh, NC.
Welch
K J
KJ
Cline
L S
LS
Brown
C K
CK
D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation / Q000592:standards*; D002568:Certification; D004554:Electric Countershock; D004635:Emergency Medicine / Q000592:standards*; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014481:United States