Abstract 111: Outcomes for Patients Receiving Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation During Novel Coronavirus Outbreak in The United States

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Introduction: Since the start of the novel coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., the CDC and AHA have introduced new CPR guidelines involving increased precautions for protecting healthcare providers from infection. These precautions have been widely adopted for both known and potential COVID+ patients despite debate over increased strain on CPR providers and potentially inferior outcomes. In order to bridge the knowledge gap surrounding safe, effective CPR practices in the presence of COVID-19, patient outcomes for codes performed in our medical center since March 2020 were compared to those of the same time last year. Methods: A total of 94 hospital codes across 80 patients were included. Age, BMI, and code duration were tested for significant differences in means between groups using ANOVA, with pairwise comparisons done using Tukey’s HSD test. Discrete variables were tested for significant differences among groups using chi-square association tests. Results: Groups were well matched on patient characteristics. There were no significant differences in age, comorbidities, or rhythm type among groups. COVID+ patients had significantly higher BMI than non-COVID patients. Code duration was significantly greater in the COVID+ group. However, there was no significant difference in code survival; 5 of 10 COVID+ patients (50%) survived the code event, compared to 54 of 84 (64%) non-COVID patients. Only 1 of 10 (10%) COVID+ patients was discharged alive vs. 18 of 71 non-COVID patients (25%); while not significant, this difference is perhaps worthy of further attention. Conclusions: Patient outcomes between 2019 and 2020 were comparable, indicating that extra precautions taken by healthcare personnel during the COVID-19 outbreak are not degrading the quality of CPR administered. However, COVID+ patients had significantly longer code durations than non-COVID patients in both years, suggesting a greater difficulty in restoring spontaneous circulation in the virus group.