title: Cardiac arrest calls in a general hospital.
abstract: All acute hospitals have a cardiac arrest team. A retrospective study of cardiac arrest calls prospectively recorded over a 24-month period was performed. 174 cardiac arrest calls were analyzed with 76 of these calls being false alarms. Only 16.5% of patients survived to discharge. Median age of patients suffering a cardiopulmonary arrest was 71.5 years (range 22-96 years) with an arrest occurring a median of 2 days post admission (range 0-83 days). A pilot study to determine physiological deterioration in the 24 hours prior to cardiac arrest was also performed. 45% of patients demonstrated a physiological deterioration over this time. Recommendations are made regarding the management of in-hospital cardiac arrests.
authors.affiliation: Dept of Medicine, St Luke's Hospital, Kilkenny. gallaj@eircom.net
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gallagher
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Groarke
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Courtney
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006760:Hospitalization; D006769:Hospitals, General; D006801:Humans; D007494:Ireland / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016019:Survival Analysis