PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKS
One stroke, second heart attack or death is prevented for every 15 STEMI patients who receive a prehospital 12-lead ECG, aspirin, direct
transport to a PCI center and activation of an interventional cardiology team.1
In addition to universal response time
reporting, it is reasonable to expect EMS
systems to adopt universal "apples-toapples" clinical performance measures
that apply to every community and
delivery model. Studies about cardiac
arrest, pain management, sepsis, sedation and transport destinations can be
used with the 2008 Eagles benchmark
paper to measure clinical performance.
Cardiac Arrest
Cardiac arrest survival rates vary
dramatically across the country. Published
survival rates of patients whose arrests
were witnessed and were in ventricular
fbrillation when EMS arrived are above
50% in Seattle,6 above 40% in Raleigh,7
3% in Chicago and less than 1% in
Detroit.3 Where patients live often determines if they live.
Like response time reporting, not every
system measures survival the same way.
The temporary return of a pulse is much
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JUNE 2013 | EMSWORLD.com