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Silent Code Blues Begin Sept. 6, click here for story
By next month, every nook and cranny of BWH will be within 90 seconds of automated external defibrillators (AED), making the entire hospital, including administrative offices and laboratories, heart-safe. The addition of public access defibrillators, which have been installed throughout non-clinical areas, complete BWH's goal of “three minutes to defibrillation.”
“Through this effort, which was part of the hospital defibrillator conversion project, everyone who steps foot inside this hospital-patients, visitors and staff- is no more than a three-minute roundtrip to a defibrillator in case they suffer sudden cardiac arrest,” L. Michael Fraai, MS, director of Biomedical Engineering, said.
In the event of a sudden cardiac arrest, commonly caused by ventricular fibrillation (an abrupt loss of organized heart function), every minute that passes without defibrillation reduces a victim's chances of survival by 7 to 10 percent, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). As early defibrillation is the only definitive treatment, “three minutes to defib” is the AHA recommended standard.
As the hospital began the process of upgrading clinical defibrillators with the latest technology, Charles Pozner, MD, medical director for STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation in Emergency Medicine, and Jennifer L. Jackson, assistant director of Biomedical Engineering, took additional steps to map out the non-clinical areas for public access AEDs.
“We were looking for highly visible locations like stairwells and intersections of major hallways,” Jackson said. “And we put signs in secondary locations.”
Eighteen Zoll AED Plus devices with explicit picture and audio directions, along with dozens of signs alerting people to their locations, were installed during the past few weeks. The devices are fully automated and easy to use. Biomedical Engineering and the CPR Committee collaborated to bring the public access AEDs to the hospital.
“I'm extremely proud of the behind-the-scenes work of many staff to make available this important resource to patients, visitors and staff,” said Peter Stone, MD, chair of the CPR Committee.