Heart Attack Response Slow in Hospitals, Study Shows

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January 4th, 2008

"Hospitals slow to use defibrillators"

A new study shows that hospitals are often too slow in responding to sudden cardiac arrest, increasing the risk of serious brain injury and death.

Approximately 500,000 Americans experience sudden cardiac arrest in hospitals every year, and less than a third of those patients survive.

Alarming Statistics
A defibrillator device can deliver a potentially life-saving shock when used quickly, but the new study shows that hospitals fail to use the device within the recommended two minutes in nearly 30% of cardiac arrest cases.

Patients who received a shock within the two-minute window had a 39% survival rate. However, for the 17% who received a shock between the third and fifth minute, the rate of survival dropped to 28%. When patients waited longer than five minutes for a shock, survival fell to 15%

Lead author of the study, Dr. Paul Chan, said additional studies were needed to determine how to improve these statistics, but measures that might help include letting nurses deliver defibrillator shock and using more automated systems to detect cardiac arrest.

The Study
For the study, researchers at the University of Michigan looked at defibrillator usage data from 369 hospitals nationwide. The researchers found that hospitals with more than 250 beds performed better than smaller ones.

The study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

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