TUESDAY, Jan. 10 (HealthDay News) -- People who suffer sudden
cardiac arrest are more likely to survive if 911 and EMS
dispatchers help bystanders assess victims and begin CPR
immediately, says a new scientific statement from the American
Heart Association.
One of its main goals is to increase how often bystanders
perform CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation).
"I think it's a call to arms," statement lead author E. Brooke Lerner, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, said in an AHA news release. "It isn't as common as you think, that you call 911 and they tell you what to do."
The statement includes four recommendations:
- Dispatchers should assess whether someone has had a cardiac
arrest and if so, tell callers how to administer CPR
immediately.
- Dispatchers should confidently give hands-only CPR instructions
for adults who have had a cardiac arrest not caused by asphyxia (as
in drowning).
- Communities should measure performance of dispatchers and local
EMS agencies, including how long it takes until CPR is begun.
- Performance measurements should be part of a quality assurance
program involving the entire emergency response system including
EMS and hospitals.
The statement, released Jan. 9, was published simultaneously in
the journal
Circulation.
Sudden cardiac arrest occurs when a problem arises with
electrical impulses in the heart, causing it to stop beating
normally. The survival rate for people who suffer sudden cardiac
arrest outside of a hospital is only 11 percent.
Each year in the United States, more than 380,000 people are
assessed by EMS for sudden cardiac arrest.
Rapid assessment and early CPR are among the links in the "Chain
of Survival" that can improve a person's chances of surviving
sudden cardiac arrest. Other links include rapid defibrillation,
effective advanced life support and integrated post-cardiac arrest
care.
People who don't have CPR training are often afraid to help. But
even if a person is suffering from something other than cardiac
arrest, "the chances that you're going to hurt somebody are very,
very small," Lerner said. "And if you do nothing, they're not
getting the help that's going to save their life."
More information
The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more
about
sudden cardiac arrest.