EMS World

NOV 2017

EMS World Magazine is the most authoritative source in the world for clinical and educational material designed to improve the delivery of prehospital emergency medical care.

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22 NOVEMBER 2017 | EMSWORLD.com improve cardiac arrest response and out- comes in their communities. After attending an academy, HeartRescue partners com- mit to offering resuscitation academies in their states. The leaders of SaveMIHeart also host a one-day conference to bring together EMS and hospital providers from across the state. "The purpose of the annual conference is to come away with best practices we should be working on to achieve our goal of doubling survival by 2020," Shields says. "We aim high. We set our goals high, and we reach for them." Improving in-hospital care of SCA patients. When an SCA victim arrives at the hospital after being successfully resus- citated, the short- and long-term treatment plans are critical to the patient's outcome. While much has been studied about how to improve a cardiac arrest victim's chance of meaningful survival, many unknowns remain. While others may be put off by this uncertainty, Dunne finds it energizing. "I see how fast the science changes, even over the course of a few years of my initial training," he says. "Cardiac arrest is a wide- open area of research that has a lot of pos- sibilities for improvement." Shields' data collection efforts are key to informing physicians such as Dunne about performance and effective treatments. Shields, who has a background in cardiac and critical care nursing, uses this train- ing and experience when she shares data with hospital caregivers looking for ways to improve survival for patients who regain a pulse after SCA. "Are we withdrawing care too soon? What are the outcomes for patients who receive targeted temperature management or car- diac stents?" Shields says, describing the questions she and others are trying to answer about the impact of in-hospital interven- tions. "What is our level of optimal care?" The HeartRescue Project focuses on col- laboration among its partners so they can analyze information about how, when and where SCA patients are transported. These data will help EMS agencies make determi- nations about medical protocols, the use of mechanical CPR devices and hospital destination requirements. Conclusion None of these initiatives would succeed in Michigan without the leadership of dedicat- ed people such as Dunne, Neumar, O'Neil, Swor and Shields. Together they are tack- ling a public health problem in their state by taking universal best practices and tailoring implementation efforts to their communi- ties. The HeartRescue Project has given these visionaries access to a network of like-minded leaders in systems with the same goal: increasing survival rates from sudden cardiac arrest. The size and scope of an effort to double SCA survival rates may be daunting, but Michigan's leaders are committed to suc- cess. Detroit happens to be one of the larg- est contributors to the CARES database in the country. "If we are going to double the survival rate, a lot of the improvement has to come out of Detroit," Dunne says. With support from HeartRescue Project collaborators around the country, Michi- gan's SaveMIHeart initiative can have a huge impact on residents' lives by creating a system of cardiac arrest care that focuses on the ultimate outcome, Harkins says. "The big picture in our states is that we are seeing more SCA victims who are living instead of just surviving." ABOUT THE AUTHOR Hilary Gates, MAEd, NRP, is program director for EMS World Expo. Reach her at hilary@ emsworld.com. SaveMIHeart created an award-winning public service video about hands-only CPR and showed it to more than 100,000 fans at two University of Michigan football games. The lighthearted video has been viewed more than 150,000 times on social media, according to Teri Shields (4th from right).

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