Delayed Prehospital Implementation of the 2005 American Heart Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiac Care

AbstractIntroduction. In 2005, the American Heart Association (AHA) released guidelines to improve survival rates from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Objective. To determine if, and when, emergency medical services (EMS) agencies participating in the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC) implemented these guidelines. Methods. We contacted 178 EMS agencies and completed structured telephone interviews with 176 agencies. The survey collected data on specific treatment protocols before and after implementation of the 2005 guidelines as well as the date of implementation crossover (the “crossover date”). The crossover date was then linked to a database describing the size, type, and structure of each agency. Descriptive statistics and regression were used to examine patterns in time to crossover. Results. The 2005 guidelines were implemented by 174 agencies (99%). The number of days from guideline release to implementation was as follows: mean 416 (standard deviation 172), median 415 (range 49–750)....