EMR Chapter 25-MCIT-F3-1208 | The Heart Of The Matter :  This is a CPR course which looks at how life saving has evolved, and why it keeps changing. This chapter walks through from the history of resuscitation, to evidence based CPR practices that you are learning today. It gives a clear picture of your role as an EMR , and how staying with current guidelines is a critical part of providing good patient care. The lessons covered are  

• Lesson 1: From Breath To Beat: The Story of CPR
• Lesson 2: The ABCs And AEDs
• Lesson 3: The Great Flip: A-B-C Becomes C-A-B, and,
• Lesson 4: The Heartbeat Hustle: Doing CPR the Right Way

Excerpt from EMR Chapter 25-MCIT-F3-1208 | The Heart Of The Matter

Now we need to talk about the other major breakthrough of this era: defibrillation. This is huge, and it’s directly relevant to you as an EMR because many of you will be trained to use AEDs.

So, what is defibrillation? Basically, it’s using electricity to shock the heart back into a normal rhythm. That sounds scary, but here’s what’s actually happening. When someone’s heart goes into certain deadly rhythms, particularly ventricular fibrillation or VF, the heart muscle is quivering uselessly instead of pumping. It’s like a bag of worms wiggling around. No blood is moving. A defibrillator sends a jolt of electricity through the heart that essentially hits the reset button. It stops all that chaotic electrical activity, and hopefully, the heart’s natural pacemaker can take over and start a normal rhythm again.

It’s actually pretty amazing when you think about it. Researchers discovered in the 70s and 80s that VF is one of the most common initial rhythms in sudden cardiac arrest, especially in adults. And here’s the really important part – VF is highly survivable IF you can shock it quickly. We’re talking survival rates of 50, 60, even 70 percent if you can defibrillate within the first few minutes. But for every minute you delay, the survival rate drops by about 10 percent. After 10 minutes, VF usually deteriorates into A-systolee, also known as flatlining, and at that point, the survival rate is near zero.

This discovery changed everything. Suddenly, getting defibrillators to patients quickly became just as important as getting CPR started. This is why we now have AEDs in airports, schools, gyms, and office buildings. This is why EMRs are trained to use them.