Cardiac arrest of nonpatients within hospital public areas.
Time to defibrillation is the most important controllable factor for survival. Hospitals also must respond to cardiac arrest in nonpatients (i.e., visitors and staff members) within their public areas. In-hospital cardiac arrest teams may be unaccustomed to resuscitating visitors under what is essentially a prehospital environment. All cardiorespiratory arrests over a 2-year period at the investigators' institution were reviewed. Six of the 749 in-hospital cardiorespiratory arrests (0.8%) occurred in visitors within public areas of the hospital. The average time to defibrillation for the public area cohort was significantly longer than for the in-hospital arrest control group (12.3 vs 2.5 minutes, p <0.0001). Further research is needed to reduce the time to defibrillation and consequently improve survival outcomes for cardiac arrest in hospital public areas.
Adams
Bruce D
BD
Department of Emergency Medicine, Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas 78234-6200, USA. bruce.adams@amedd.army.mil
D004554:Electric Countershock; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014789:Visitors to Patients