The sounds of cardiac arrest: innovating to obtain an accurate record during in-hospital cardiac arrest
Resuscitation, 07/13/2012
Clinical Article
Duran N et al. – The audio recording system permits the register of a larger number of items per patient during in–hospital cardiac arrest and allows measurement of time intervals between the different interventions during cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Methods- Prospective observational study between January 2008 and December 2009.
- The population that were included, were hospitalized patients and non–hospitalized patients assisted by a cardiac arrest team, except for critical areas.
- An audio recording system with a timer was turned on when cardiac arrest team was alerted.
- Recordings were reviewed to fill in the items recommended by the Utstein style.
- Time intervals were calculated.
- Mean number of completed items per patient were compared between recorded and non–recorded cardiac arrest.
- 119 CA team alerts took place. 64 (53.7%) cases were real CA and 37 (57.8%) of them were properly recorded.
- A mean number of items per patient in recorded cardiac arrest cases were 18.18 (±3.2) vs. 15.96 (±4.1) in non–recorded cardiac arrest cases (p<0.05).
- In the recorded cases, mean times were: alert–arrival: 1.23 (±0.95)minutes; arrival–cardiopulmonary resuscitation initiation: 0.63 (±0.38)minutes; arrival – first defibrillation: 2.06 (±1.33)minutes; arrival – intubation: 8.42 (±4.64)minutes; arrival – first adrenaline: 3.30 (±1.98)minutes.
