Three Pillars for Pediatric Resuscitation Success

Data from the American Heart Association and the Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) guidelines consistently report neurologically intact survival from pediatric cardiac arrest to be 3% for infants and 10% for children. This pediatric survival data has remained unchanged for decades without a clear vision or path to improved survival statistics. Change is needed, and we recommend focusing on the following three pillars in order to achieve success in pediatric cardiac arrest: 1) bystander CPR; 2) telecommunicator CPR (TCPR); and 3) on-scene EMS resuscitation. Using a different lens to evaluate these links in the chain of survival may provide a different perspective, and inform the way forward. In the United States today, children in cardiac arrest have less than a 50% likelihood of receiving bystander CPR. The solution to this dilemma has remained elusive, proving to be a difficult problem to solve; yet correcting it may yield the biggest impact on survival. Resolution of this problem is beyond the scope of this write-up. Often called the “first first responders,” call-takers are critically important to the survival of those found in cardiac arrest. Time-to-recognition of cardiac arrest and time to hands-on-chest are of critical importance to survival, yet call-taker performance isn’t being currently measured by these two key performance indicators. The AHA recently released guidelines targeting two minutes for arrest recognition and three minutes for hands-on-chest i...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Cardiac & Resuscitation Top Story Exclusive Articles Patient Care Heart of America Source Type: news