This is from the NY Times health section a couple of days ago. See my comment at the end. <\/p>\n
Hospitals Slow in Heart Cases, Research Finds – New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n In nearly a third of cases of sudden cardiac arrest in the hospital, the staff takes too long to respond, increasing the risk of brain damage and death, a new study finds. <\/p>\n Researchers estimate that the delays contribute to thousands of deaths a year in the United States. <\/p>\n The study was based on the records of 6,789 patients at 369 hospitals<\/a> whose hearts stopped because of conditions that could be reversed with an electrical shock<\/a> from a defibrillator \u2014 a favorite device in TV hospital dramas, when a \u201ccode blue\u201d is called and doctors and nurses come running with a crash cart and paddles to shock the victim back to life. <\/p>\n In the real world, doctors and nurses do not always run fast enough. Expert guidelines say the shock should be given within two minutes after the heart stops, but the study found that it took longer in 30 percent of the cases.<\/p>\n The consequences were striking. When the defibrillation<\/a> was delayed, only 22.2 percent of patients survived long enough to be discharged from the hospital, as opposed to 39.3 percent when the shock was given on time. <\/p>\n >>>>>><\/p>\n Dr. Chan said another factor was the type and the amount of resuscitation equipment available. Traditional defibrillators used in hospitals require that a doctor or a nurse look at the patient\u2019s electrocardiogram, verify that the problem is \u201cshockable,\u201d adjust the machine and deliver the shock. <\/p>\n By contrast, the automatic defibrillators that have come into use in public places like airports and casinos during the last decade or so are meant to be used by laymen: trained employees or even bystanders. Connected to the chest of someone who has collapsed, the machine senses electrical activity in the heart and delivers a shock only if it is needed. These devices are designed to be essentially foolproof, making it impossible to harm someone by firing off an unnecessary shock. But so far they have not been used much in the care of hospitalized patients.<\/p>\n Dr. Saxon said the automatic defibrillators should be used more, along with the type of heart monitoring now given mostly to cardiac patients. Not everyone needs such monitoring, she said, but it may be in order for those who are very ill with kidney problems, diabetes<\/span><\/a> or pneumonia<\/span><\/a>, even if they have no history of heart problems. Their information would be transmitted to a computer network that would send out an alert if needed. In addition, she said, automatic defibrillators could be installed in every hospital room. <\/p>\n \u201cYou can get them for $500 on eBay,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t even take a nurse. You could train the cafeteria workers if you wanted to.\u201d <\/p>\n >>>>>><\/p>\n Speaking on her cellphone, Dr. Saxon said, \u201cYou\u2019re better off having your arrest at Nordstrom, where I\u2019m standing right now, because there are 15 people around me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Well Dr. Saxon, I hope I never find out, but I don’t buy the idea that I’m better off having a cardiac arrest in a shopping center. This could be a case of Dr. Saxon enjoying getting her 20 minutes of fame in the NY Times, and wanting to say something provacative. <\/p>\n This is from the NY Times health section a couple of days ago. See my comment at the end. Hospitals Slow in Heart Cases, Research Finds – New York Times In nearly a third of cases of sudden cardiac arrest in the hospital, the staff takes too long to respond, increasing the risk of brain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-lymphoma-and-related-medical-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5570,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008\/revisions\/5570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n