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Objective: The objective of this study is to identify the top five most influential papers published on the use of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in cardiac arrest and the top five most influential papers on the use of POCUS in shock in adult patients., Methods: An expert panel of 14 members was recruited from the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP) Emergency Ultrasound Committee and the Canadian Ultrasound Fellowship Collaborative. The members of the panel are ultrasound fellowship trained or equivalent, are engaged in POCUS research, and are leaders in POCUS locally and nationally in Canada. A modified Delphi process was used, consisting of three rounds of sequential surveys and discussion to achieve consensus on the top five most influential papers for the use of POCUS in cardiac arrest and shock., Results: The panel identified 39 relevant papers on POCUS in cardiac arrest and 42 relevant papers on POCUS in shock. All panel members participated in all three rounds of the modified Delphi process, and we ultimately identified the top five most influential papers on POCUS in cardiac arrest and also on POCUS in shock. Studies include descriptions and analysis of safe POCUS protocols that add value from a diagnostic and prognostic perspective in both populations during resuscitation., Conclusion: We have developed a reading list of the top five influential papers on the use of POCUS in cardiac arrest and shock to better inform residents, fellows, clinicians, and researchers on integrating and studying POCUS in a more evidence-based manner., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP)/ Association Canadienne de Médecine d'Urgence (ACMU).)

Background: Recent evidence suggests that patient outcomes are not affected by the offering of family presence during resuscitation (FPDR), and that psychological outcomes are neutral or improved in family members of adult patients. The exclusion of family members from the resuscitation area should, therefore, be reassessed., Objective: The present Canadian Critical Care Society position paper is designed to help clinicians and institutions decide whether to incorporate FPDR as part of their routine clinical practice, and to offer strategies to implement FPDR successfully., Methods: The authors conducted a literature search of the perspectives of health care providers, patients and families on the topic of FPDR, and considered the relevant ethical values of beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy and justice in light of the clinical evidence for FPDR. They reviewed randomized controlled trials and observational studies of FPDR to determine strategies that have been used to screen family members, select appropriate chaperones and educate staff., Results: FPDR is an ethically sound practice in Canada, and may be considered for the families of adult and pediatric patients in the hospital setting. Hospitals that choose to implement FPDR should develop transparent policies regarding which family members are to be offered the opportunity to be present during the resuscitation. Experienced chaperones should accompany and support family members in the resuscitation area. Intensive educational interventions and increasing experience with FPDR are associated with increased support for the practice from health care providers., Conclusions: FPDR should be considered to be an important component of patient and family-centred care.

Aim: We sought to describe the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the care provided by Canadian emergency medical system (EMS) clinicians to patients suffering out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), and whether any observed changes persisted beyond the initial phase of the pandemic., Methods: We analysed cases of adult, non-traumatic, OHCA from the Canadian Resuscitation Outcome Consortium (CanROC) registry who were treated between January 27th, 2018, and December 31st, 2021. We used adjusted regression models and interrupted time series analysis to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic (January 27th, 2020 - December 31st, 2021)on the care provided to patients with OHCA by EMS clinicians., Results: There were 12,947 cases of OHCA recorded in the CanROC registry in the pre-COVID-19 period and 17,488 during the COVID-19 period. We observed a reduction in the cumulative number of defibrillations provided by EMS (aRR 0.91, 95% CI 0.89 - 0.93, p < 0.01), a reduction in the odds of attempts at intubation (aOR 0.33, 95% CI 0.31 - 0.34, p < 0.01), higher rates of supraglottic airway use (aOR 1.23, 95% CI 1.16-1.30, p < 0.01), a reduction in vascular access (aOR for intravenous access 0.84, 95% CI 0.79 - 0.89, p < 0.01; aOR for intraosseous access 0.89, 95% CI 0.82 - 0.96, p < 0.01), a reduction in the odds of epinephrine administration (aOR 0.89, 95% CI 0.85 - 0.94, p < 0.01), and higher odds of resuscitation termination on scene (aOR 1.38, 95% CI 1.31 - 1.46, p < 0.01). Delays to initiation of chest compressions (2 min. vs. 3 min., p < 0.01), intubation (16 min. vs. 19 min., p = 0.01), and epinephrine administration (11 min. vs. 13 min., p < 0.01) were observed, whilst supraglottic airways were inserted earlier (11 min. vs. 10 min., p < 0.01)., Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with substantial changes in EMS management of OHCA. EMS leaders should consider these findings to optimise current OHCA management and prepare for future pandemics., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Aim: Quantifying the ratio describing the difference between "true route" and "straight-line" distances from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs) to the closest accessible automated external defibrillator (AED) can help correct likely overestimations in AED coverage. Furthermore, we aimed to examine to what extent the closest AED based on true route distance differed from the closest AED using "straight-line"., Methods: OHCAs (1994-2016) and AEDs (2016) in Copenhagen, Denmark and in Toronto, Canada (2007-2015 and 2015, respectively) were identified. Three distances were calculated between OHCA and target AED: 1) the straight-line distance ("straight-line") to the closest AED, 2) the corresponding true route distance to the same AED ("true route"), and 3) the closest AED based only on true route distance ("shortest true route"). The ratio between "true route" and "straight-line" distance was calculated and differences in AED coverage (an OHCA ≤ 100 m of an accessible AED) were examined., Results: The "straight-line" AED coverage of 100 m was 24.2% (n = 2008/8295) in Copenhagen and 6.9% (n = 964/13916) in Toronto. The corresponding "true route" distance reduced coverage to 9.5% (n = 786) and 3.8% (n = 529), respectively. The median ratio between "true route" and "straight-line" distance was 1.6 in Copenhagen and 1.4 in Toronto. In 26.1% (n = 2167) and 22.9% (n = 3181) of all Copenhagen and Toronto OHCAs respectively, the closest AED in "shortest true route" was different than the closest AED initially found by "straight-line"., Conclusions: Straight-line distance is not an accurate measure of distance and overestimates the actual AED coverage compared to a more realistic true route distance by a factor 1.4-1.6., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Analyses of data recorded by monitor-defibrillators that measure CPR depth with different methods show significant relationships between the process and outcome of CPR. Our objective was to evaluate whether chest compression depth was significantly associated with outcome based on accelerometer-recordings obtained with monitor-defibrillators from a single manufacturer, and to assess whether an accelerometer-based analysis corroborated evidence-based practice guidelines on performance of CPR., Methods and Results: We included 5434 adult patients treated from seven US and Canadian cities between January 2007 and May 2015. These had mean (SD) age of 64.2 (17.2) years, mean compression depth of 45.9 (12.7) mm, ROSC sustained to ED arrival of 26%, and survival to hospital discharge of 8%. For survival to discharge, the adjusted odds ratios were 1.15 (95% CI, 0.86, 1.55) for cases within 2005 depth range (38-51 mm), and 1.17 (95% CI, 0.91, 1.50) for cases within 2010 depth range (>50 mm) compared to those with an average depth of <38 mm. The adjusted odds ratio of survival was 1.33 (95% CI, 1.01, 1.75) for cases within 2015 depth range (50 to 60 mm) for at least 60% of minutes., Conclusions: This analysis of patients with OHCA demonstrated that increased chest compression depth measured by accelerometer is associated with better survival. It confirms that current evidence-based recommendations to compress within 50-60 mm are likely associated with greater survival than compressing to another depth., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

During cardiac resuscitation from ventricular fibrillation (VF) it would be helpful if we could monitor and predict the optimal state of the heart to be shocked into a perfusing rhythm. Real-time feedback of this state to the emergency medical staff (EMS) could improve the survival rate after resuscitation. In this paper, using real world out-of-the-hospital human VF data obtained during resuscitation by EMS personnel, we present the results of applying wavelet markers in predicting the shock outcomes. We also performed comparative analysis of 5 existing techniques (spectral and correlation based approaches) against the proposed wavelet markers. A database of 29 human VF tracings was extracted from the defibrillator recordings collected by the EMS personnel and was used to validate the waveform markers. The results obtained by the comparison of the wavelet based features with other spectral, and correlation-based features indicates that the proposed wavelet features perform well with an overall accuracy of 79.3% in predicting the shock outcomes and hence demonstrate potential to provide near real-time feedback to EMS personnel in optimizing resuscitation outcomes.

Background: Children with life-threatening conditions frequently experience high intensity care at the end of life, though most of this research only focused on children with cancer. Some research suggests inequities in care provided based on age, disease type, socioeconomic status, and distance that the child lives from a tertiary hospital. We examined: 1) the prevalence of indicators of high intensity end-of-life care (e.g., hospital stays, intensive care unit [ICU] stays, death in ICU, use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation [CPR], use of mechanical ventilation) and 2) the association between demographic and diagnostic factors and each indicator for children with any life-threatening condition in Canada. Methods: We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study using linked health administrative data to examine care provided in the last 14, 30, and 90 days of life to children who died between 3 months and 19 years of age from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2014 from any underlying life-threatening medical condition. Logistic regression was used to model the association between demographic and diagnostic variables and each indicator of high intensity end-of-life care except number of hospital days where negative binomial regression was used. Results: Across 2435 child decedents, the most common diagnoses included neurology (51.1%), oncology (38.0%), and congenital illness (35.9%), with 50.9% of children having diagnoses in three or more categories. In the last 30 days of life, 42.5% (n = 1035) of the children had an ICU stay and 36.1% (n = 880) died in ICU. Children with cancer had lower odds of an ICU stay (OR = 0.47; 95% CI = 0.36–0.62) and ICU death (OR = 0.37; 95%CI = 0.28–0.50) than children with any other diagnoses. Children with 3 or more diagnoses (vs. 1 diagnosis) had higher odds of > 1 hospital stay in the last 30 days of life (OR = 2.08; 95%CI = 1.29–3.35). Living > 400 km (vs < 50 km) from a tertiary pediatric hospital was associated with higher odds of multiple hospitalizations (OR = 2.09; 95%CI = 1.33–3.33). Conclusion: High intensity end of life care is prevalent in children who die from life threatening conditions, particularly those with a non-cancer diagnosis. Further research is needed to understand and identify opportunities to enhance care across disease groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many long-term care settings, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is regarded as an available treatment option. However, for the majority of long-term care residents the expected outcome following CPR is poor. This descriptive study explored the CPR decision-making process in two long-term care institutions. This was accomplished through the administration of questionnaires to nursing staff, residents, residents' family members and through completion of a chart review of deceased individuals. This paper primarily addresses the role of nurses in the CPR decision-making process in long-term care. Nurses were rarely explicitly involved in the CPR decision-making process. Knowledge deficits of nurses concerning the CPR policy at the institutions and the expected outcomes of CPR were identified. Also noted were inconsistencies between policy and practice, with CPR being withheld in practice more often than dictated by protocol. Strategies to facilitate the CPR decision-making process in long-term care settings are suggested, and specific roles for nurses in relation to CPR decision making are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented that focuses on issues related to the quintessential procedure of rural medical practice, including an article on the use of a cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) puck to help rural nurses train to provide quality CPR.

Background: Sudden cardiac death remains a leading cause of mortality in Canada, resulting in more than 35,000 deaths annually. Most cardiac arrest victims collapse in their own home (85% of the time) and 50% are witnessed by a family member or bystander. Survivors have a quality of life similar to the general population, but the overall survival rate for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) rarely exceeds 8%. Victims are almost four times more likely to survive when receiving bystander CPR, but bystander CPR rates have remained low in Canada over the past decade, not exceeding 15-25% until recently. Telecommunication-assisted CPR instructions have been shown to significantly increase bystander CPR rates, but agonal breathing may be misinterpreted as a sign of life by 9-1-1 callers and telecommunicators, and is responsible for as much as 50% of missed OHCA diagnoses. We sought to improve the ability and speed with which ambulance telecommunicators can recognize OHCA over the phone, initiate timely CPR instructions, and improve survival.Methods: In this multi-center national study, we will implement and evaluate an educational program developed for ambulance telecommunicators using a multiple baseline interrupted time-series design. We will compare outcomes 12 months before and after the implementation of a 20-min theory-based educational video addressing barriers to recognition of OHCA while in the presence of agonal breathing. Participating Canadian sites demonstrated prior ability to collect standardized data on OHCA. Data will be collected from eligible 9-1-1 recordings, paramedic documentation and hospital medical records. Eligible cases will include suspected or confirmed OHCA of presumed cardiac origin in patients of any age with attempted resuscitation.Discussion: The ability of telecommunication-assisted CPR instructions to improve bystander CPR and survival rates for OHCA victims is undeniable. The ability of telecommunicators to recognize OHCA over the phone is unequivocally impeded by relative lack of training on agonal breathing, and reluctance to initiate CPR instructions when in doubt. Our pilot data suggests the potential impact of this project will be to increase absolute OHCA recognition and bystander CPR rates by at least 10%, and absolute out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival by 5% or more.Trial Registration: Prospectively registered on March 28, 2019 at ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03894059 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Discussions with patients with cancer about cardiopulmonary resuscitation directives (code status) are often led by residents. This study was carried out in Canada to identify current educational practices and gaps in training for this communication skill. Methods: Canadian medical and radiation oncology residents and program directors (pds) were surveyed about teaching practices, satisfaction with current education, and barriers to teaching code status discussion skills. Relative frequencies of categorical and ordinal responses were calculated. Results: Between November 2016 and February 2017, 95 (58.6%) of 162 residents and 17 (63%) of 27 pds completed surveys. Only 54.1% and 48.3% of medical and radiation oncology residents, respectively, had received any code status communication training before entering an oncology program. While 41% of residents expected to receive formal teaching on this topic during residency, 47.1% of pds endorsed inclusion of this topic in curricula. Only 20% of residents reported receiving formal evaluation of this skill while 41.2% of pds indicated that evaluations are provided. The importance of this communication skill in oncology was strongly supported. Among residents, 88% desired more training, and 82.3% of pds identified the need for new educational resources. Lack of time, resources, and evaluation tools were among the most commonly identified barriers to teaching. Conclusions: Oncology residency pds and trainees feel that code status communication is important, but teaching and evaluation of this skill are limited. Barriers to teaching and skill-building have been identified. Further work is underway to develop novel educational resources for code status communication training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:The American Heart Association guidelines (AHA) guidelines list tachycardia as a contraindication for the administration of nitroglycerin (NTG), despite limited evidence of adverse events. We sought to determine whether NTG administered for chest pain was a predictor of hypotension (systolic blood pressure <90 mmHg) in patients with tachycardia, compared to patients without tachycardia (50≥ heart rate ≤100).Methods:We performed a retrospective cohort study using patient care reports completed by basic life support (BLS) providers in a large urban Canadian EMS system for the period 2010–2012. We used logistic regression to test the association between post-NTG hypotension and tachycardia, independent of pre-NTG blood pressure, age, sex, and comorbidities. Using identical models, we tested four secondary outcomes (drop in blood pressure, reduced consciousness, bradycardia, and cardiac arrest).Results: The cohort included 10,308 patients who were administered NTG by BLS in the prehospital setting; 2,057 (20%) of patients were tachycardic before NTG administration. Hypotension occurred in 320 of all patients (3.1%): 239 without tachycardia (2.9%) and 81 with tachycardia (3.9%). Compared to non-tachycardic patients, tachycardic patients showed increased adjusted odds of hypotension (AOR: 1.60; 95% CI: 1.23–2.08) or of a drop in blood pressure of 30mm Hg or greater (AOR: 1.11; CI: 1.00–1.24). Tachycardia was associated with decreased odds of bradycardia (OR: 0.33; CI: 0.17–0.64). We did not find a significant association between tachycardia and either post-NTG reduced level of consciousness or cardiac arrest. We did find a strong, significant association between pre-NTG blood pressure and post-NTG hypotension (AOR for units of 10mmHg: 0.64; CI: 0.61–0.69).Conclusion:Hypotension following prehospital administration of NTG was infrequent in patients with chest pain. However, while the absolute risk of NTG-induced hypotension was low, patients with pre-NTG tachycardia had a significant increase in the relative risk of hypotension. In addition, hypotension occurred most frequently in patients presenting with a lower pre-NTG blood pressure, which may prove to be a more discriminating basis for future guidelines. EMS medical directors should review BLS chest pain protocols to weigh the benefits of NTG administration against its risks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Chronically homeless individuals have high rates of hospitalization and death, and they may benefit from the completion of advance directives. Aim: To determine the rate of advance directive completion using a counselor-guided intervention, identify characteristics associated with advance directive completion, and describe end-of-life care preferences in a group of chronically homeless individuals. Design: Participants completed a survey and were offered an opportunity to complete an advance directive with a trained counselor. Participants: A total of 205 residents of a shelter in Canada for homeless men (89.1% of those approached) participated from April to June 2013. Results: Duration of homelessness was ⩾12 months in 72.8% of participants, and 103 participants (50.2%) chose to complete an advance directive. Socio-demographic characteristics, health status, and health care use were not associated with completion of an advance directive. Participants were more likely to complete an advance directive if they reported thinking about death on a daily basis, believed that thinking about their friends and family was important, or reported knowing their wishes for end-of-life care but not having told anyone about these wishes. Among individuals who completed an advance directive, 61.2% named a substitute decision maker, and 94.1% expressed a preference to receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the event of a cardiorespiratory arrest if there was a chance of returning to their current state of health. Conclusion: A counselor-guided intervention can achieve a high rate of advance directive completion among chronically homeless persons. Most participants expressed a preference to receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the event of a cardiorespiratory arrest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although this is a personal review of the experience in one institution, the lessons learnt in Vancouver are applicable to the further development of medical ethics in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the need for the development of a systematic approach to cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and automated external defibrillator training for the high school students in Canada. According to Christian Vaillancourt, research chair in emergency cardiac resuscitation at the University of Ottawa in Ontario, it is needed to train more people aged 55 because 85 percent of cardiac arrests occur in the presence of family.