Call for paradigm shift to CPR competency to save 50,000 additional lives each year by 2025

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Heart imaging has been successfully used to predict the benefit or futility of catheter ablation. The investigators described their findings in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Imaging.The American Heart Association (Association) and Laerdal Medical (Laerdal) are furthering their decades-long alliance to deliver a new standard of resuscitation quality and patient care centred on CPR competence. Attendees representing 30 of the nation’s largest health care systems joined the inaugural RQI 2020 Keynote and Healthcare Networking Conference in Dallas to better understand how this paradigm shift can prevent tens of thousands of preventable cardiac arrest deaths annually in US hospitals.

Each year, more than 200,000 adult cardiac arrests occur in US hospitals and less than 26% of adult patients survive. High-quality CPR is the primary component that influences survival from cardiac arrest, but there is considerable variation in monitoring, implementation and quality improvement. As a result, CPR quality varies widely between health care systems and locations.

For decades, Basic Life Support training has been the CPR training standard for health care providers, requiring participants to renew their course completion card every two years. Studies show CPR skills can decay within three to six months following this training.

To meet this challenge, in 2015, the Association and Laerdal co-developed RQI, or Resuscitation Quality Improvement. RQI is a self-directed, simulation-based performance and quality improvement program for health care professionals that offers “low-dose, high-frequency” hands-on learning sessions that provide vital CPR skills practice in 10 minutes every 90 days. RQI 2020 offers a comprehensive, end-to-end quality improvement program that will deliver higher CPR quality at a lower cost to health care systems and professionals. RQI 2020 will make its market debut in January 2019.

“The American Heart Association believes that preventable death from sudden cardiac arrest in hospitals is a public health crisis,” said Nancy Brown, American Heart Association CEO. “Our goal is to create a world where no one dies from cardiac arrest, and today, we are putting a bold stake in the ground to transform the standard of care for treating victims of preventable cardiac arrest. The power of partnerships at the intersection of science and technology, in collaboration with health care systems across the country, is the solution to save more lives and ultimately get to zero.”

The Association and Laerdal made a commitment in February to save 50,000 additional lives from in-hospital cardiac arrest each year by 2025. This is based on RQI adoption in all US hospitals. Currently, there are nearly 400 US hospitals that have implemented the RQI program and more than 300,000 health care providers have improved CPR competency since the program’s introduction.

“Technology has advanced to focus on health care provider competency, which can lead to transforming the quality and standard of care,” said Tore Laerdal, chairman and CEO of Laerdal Medical. “The key to success is hospital adoption and implementation of this low-dose, high- frequency learning paradigm. Our vision, Getting to Zero, is to eliminate preventable and unexpected cardiac arrest deaths in health care. The time is now to disrupt the status quo by innovating for impact and we applaud those health care systems that have taken this significant step.”


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