A description of echocardiography in life support use during cardiac arrest in an Emergency Department before and
Hannah M Preston1, Adam S T Collins, Matthew J Reed
1aCollege of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh bEmergency Medicine Research Group Edinburgh (EMeRGE), Department of Emergency Medicine, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Edinburgh cEmergency Department, Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Objectives:
To investigate echocardiography in life support (ELS) use in Emergency Department (ED) cardiac arrest patients before and after a training day.
Methods:
A prospective before and after cohort study. Data was collated over a 24-month period before and after an ELS training day from our ED ultrasound database [Registry of Emergency Based Ultrasound Scanning (REBUS)], ED electronic patient records and from stored digital ELS scans.
Results:
In the year before ELS training, eight of 187 cardiac arrest patients had ELS performed (4.3%). In the year after training, 46 of 232 cardiac arrest patients had ELS performed (19.8%; P<0.001). This increase has persisted with 40 of 129 (31%) patients undergoing ELS in the 6 months poststudy period. ELS aided management in six of eight pretraining cases and 32 of 46 post-training cases.
Conclusion:
Use of ELS significantly increased after the training day most commonly supporting a decision to stop resuscitation. This change in practice has been maintained.
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