Cardiac arrest in the community. How to improve survival rates.

A coordinated community response to cardiac arrest can be successful if the response time to administration of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is less than four minutes and to administration of advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) is less than eight minutes. Elements needed to achieve this goal include rapid access to the emergency medical system; widespread CPR training; rapid response of first responders trained in basic life support; rapid response time to ACLS, including resuscitation at the scene; and an evaluation system to determine the effectiveness of the response and then implementation of changes to prevent future mistakes. The response to cardiac arrest should be kept simple, and the community should work with the resources it possesses. Most communities already have the necessary elements and simply need to coordinate the effort into a reasonable approach. Perhaps with such an approach, 80% of deaths from sudden cardiac arrest could be prevented.