The Art and Science of Improving Resuscitation

For over 40 years as a physician, researcher, author and EMS medical director, Mickey Eisenberg has led the charge for increasing sudden cardiac arrest survival rates and is one reason for the success that Seattle and King County, Washington, have demonstrated in saving people’s lives. Eisenberg first came to Seattle and the King County EMS system, known as Medic One, in the 1970s. Under the guidance of Drs. Leonard Cobb and Michael Copass, Eisenberg helped take the Medic One system that had started in Seattle and implement it throughout the entire county. At the same time, he combined his public health education and his passion for improving resuscitation to conduct groundbreaking research. As early as 1979, Eisenberg and his colleagues published research outlining the key factors in successful resuscitation. Four decades later, those findings remain the key tenets of resuscitation: early CPR, including bystander CPR, and rapid defibrillation are critical. Eisenberg, who currently serves as director of medical quality improvement for King County Medic One and a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Washington, was one of several experts recently tapped by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Emergency Medical Services (OEMS) to create CPR LifeLinks, a toolkit to help communities improve cardiac arrest care through implementation of telecommunicator CPR and high-performance CPR. In this interview, Eisenberg discusses the challenges...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Exclusive Articles Cardiac & Resuscitation Administration and Leadership Source Type: news