Congratulations to the Detroit Fire Department!
Detroit used to have one of the lowest, if not the lowest, survival rate from cardiac arrest in the nation.
A 2007 article listed one survivor among 471 cardiac arrests. But things have changed. A report from 2018 shows impressive improvement with overall survival reaching 6.4% in 2016 with the Utstein survival rate (witnessed VF) reaching 18.2%. The authors report improvements in the chain of survival. Among them, faster dispatch, telecommunicator CPR, training of fire fighters as medical first responders, additional ambulances, as well as, a process of ongoing quality improvement.
Over the past 5 years, several fire department leaders from Detroit attended the Resuscitation Academy. I like to think the Resuscitation Academy played a small role in giving these individuals the skills and motivation to help improve their system. Plus, I am pleased to see this happen since Detroit is my home town.
Way to go, Detroit!
Mickey Eisenberg, MD, PhD
The Resuscitation Academy
Sources
Improvement in Non-Traumatic, Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest: Survival in Detroit from 2014-2016
Authors: S May, L Zhang, D Foley, E Brennan, B O’Neill, E Bork, P Levy, R Dunne
Journal: Journal of the American Heart Association, 2018, DOI: 10,1161/JAHA. 118.009831
There are opportunities to significantly increase survival from out of hospital cardiac arrest. Implementation of existing standards and training programs for telephone CPR and high-performance CPR will do much to improve survival.