Abstract
Introduction: Some emergency medical services (EMS) have shown increases in survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) following the implementation of a high-performance cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) protocol. Despite this, little is known about the effect of high-performance CPR on OHCA witnessed by EMS personnel. Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study of adult, EMS-witnessed OHCA patients of medical etiology from a population-based registry in Victoria, Australia. Patients treated after the introduction of a high-performance CPR protocol and training program between February 2019 and January 2020 were compared to historical controls between January 2015 and January 2019. The effect of the intervention on survival to hospital discharge was examined using logistic regression models adjusted for temporal and arrest factors. Results: A total of 1,561 and 420 EMS-witnessed OHCA patients were treated in the control and intervention periods, respectively. Baseline characteristics were similar across control and intervention periods, including the median age of cases (69 vs. 69 years, p=0.97), male sex (65.2% vs. 60.5%, p=0.08) and initial shockable arrests (33.7% vs. 29.3%, p=0.09). Resuscitation interventions were similar across groups, except for the use of mechanical CPR which declined during the intervention period (17.0% vs. 10.7%, p<0.001). Unadjusted survival to hospital discharge was similar across control and intervention periods for the overall population (29.4% vs. 32.1%, p=0.27), but significantly higher during the intervention period for initial shockable arrests (66.6% vs. 76.9%, p=0.03). After adjustment for confounders, cases in the intervention period were associated with a 43% increase (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.43; 95% CI: 1.05, 1.94; p=0.02) in the risk-adjusted odds of survival to hospital discharge or a 79% increase (AOR 1.79, 95% CI: 1.09, 2.95; p=0.02) for initial shockable arrests. Conclusions: The implementation of a high-performance CPR quality improvement intervention was associated with significant improvement in survival from EMS witnessed OHCA. Efforts to monitor and improve CPR performance could yield further improvements in patient outcomes.
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