Survival from cardiac arrest decreases between 7 and 10% each minute defibrillation is delayed. Within the pre-hospital care environment, public access defibrillation programs and first-responders utilise semi-automatic external defibrillators to effectively increase survival following cardiac arrest from approximately 10% to approximately 60%. However, survival from an in-hospital cardiac arrest remains at approximately 10% despite the introduction of medical emergency teams. This discussion paper examines various methods to increase the in-hospital survival rate following a cardiac arrest, such as the implementation of first-responder semi-automatic external defibrillator programs and increasing education standards in basic and advanced cardiac life support.
Reference: Ranse J. Cardiac arrest: can the in-hospital chain of survival be improved? Australasian Emergency Nursing Journal. 2006;9(1):23-27.
