Factors Affecting Out-of-Hospital Cardiac-Arrest Survival

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

This Milwaukee County EMS study examined the hospital variables that may impact cardiac arrest victim survival. Of the 1,702 prehospital cardiac arrest patients who survived to 12 hospitals in the county, the survival rates varied from 29 to 40% more than the 10-year period that was examined. Although this variability wasn't statistically significant, the authors did find that that survival was associated with hospitals with higher levels of nurse staffing (more than one nurse per cardiac arrest victim).

There wasn't survival advantage for hospitals with larger emergency room (ER) volumes, total number of beds, presence of primary heart catheterization capability, myocardial infarction (MI) diagnosis or physician staffing.

Their data confirmed patients who survived to hospital admission had a greater likelihood of survival to discharge if they had a witnessed arrest (twice as likely), were aged less than 55 (twice as likely), presented rhythm V Fib (6.77 times as likely).

JEMS Magazine link here: http://www.jems.com/news_and_articles/columns/Wesley/factors_affecting_out_of_hospital_cardiac_arrest_survival.html;jsessionid=B1974811616D90A5BE78951CE2631C6D