Implementation of Gold Standard EMS CPR Programs for 2% Improvement in Survival Rates of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest in a Metropolitan City (2% Project)

Implementation of Gold Standard EMS CPR Programs for 2% Improvement in Survival Rates of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest in a Metropolitan City

This study aims to improve the survival rate of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients by 2% through a bundle of three intervention measures including: 1) dispatcher-assisted CPR, 2) multi-tiered response team CPR, and 3) feedback CPR.

The project aims to implement gold standard emergency medical services (EMS) cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) programs, which will result in increased bystander CPR, reduced EMS response time, and high quality CPR during prehospital resuscitation through a bundled approach including 1) dispatcher-assisted CPR (DA-CPR), 2) multi-tiered response team CPR, and 3) feedback CPR. The DA-CPR program aims to contribute to improved bystander CPR rate and reduced EMS response time interval through rigorous monitoring of cardiac arrest detection at primary call receiving stage as well as increased number of dispatcher-assisted CPR instruction initiation in the target time of 90 seconds. The Team CPR protocol will render synergetic efforts among participating EMS personnel from both basic life support (BLS) and advanced life support (ALS) units within the new tiered dispatch system and subsequently deliver uninterrupted CPR to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients before hospital arrival. The feedback CPR monitoring and quality assurance program will contribute to high quality CPR delivered to the patients on the scene as well as during transport.

The before intervention group will include patients from January, 2013 through December, 2014, as to refer to the historic control population who did not receive any of study interventions.

The main study phase was planned to begin in January, 2016 through December, 2017, for a total of two years. Patients during the main study phase will have received one or more study interventions as applicable. However, because we could not continue our project in 2017, we changed after period. We included implementation period (2015) in after period. Therefore, final after period begins in January 2015 to December 2016.

Bundled EMS CPR approach including dispatcher-assisted CPR, 3-person team CPR, and feedback CPR monitoring device

Gold standard EMS CPR refers to our bundled approach to providing high quality EMS CPR through one or more intervention(s) as applicable including 1) dispatcher-assisted CPR, 2) multi-tiered team CPR, and 3) feedback CPR.

Number of EMS-assessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients who survive to hospital discharge will be recorded.

Number of EMS-assessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients who survive to hospital discharge and has cerebral performance category 1 or 2 will be recorded.

Inclusion Criteria: EMS-assessed OHCA Cardiac etiology Above 15 years of age Exclusion Criteria: Patients who do not receive EMS resuscitation Patients with signs of evident death (decapitation, evident livor mortis or rigor mortis) Do-Not-Resuscitate cases Pregnant patients Patients whom the mechanical devices cannot be applied to