HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS REGISTER
[Advanced]

Heart 2008;94:260-261; doi:10.1136/hrt.2007.115170
Copyright © 2008 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & British Cardiovascular Society

This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this link to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Add article to my folders
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by McKee, M.
Right arrow Articles by McKee, D.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by McKee, M.
Right arrow Articles by McKee, D.
Topic Collections
Right arrowRelated Article

EDITORIALS

Public access defibrillation: how to maximise the gain

Martin McKee1, Dorothy McKee2

1 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
2 Camden Primary Care Trust

Correspondence to:
M McKee, European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK; martin.mckee@lshtm.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The question of how to respond to out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) encapsulates the tension between the individual and the population perspective on health. Faced with someone who has just collapsed with no pulse, the appropriate response is clear. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) makes it possible to sustain some individuals until their cardiac rhythm can be diagnosed; those found to have ventricular fibrillation can often be shocked back into sinus rhythm and evacuated to hospital, from which they have an over 70% probability, in the best centres, of being discharged alive.1

The question of what to do, at a population level, to enhance the number of people who survive is more difficult. For almost two decades it has been argued that what is needed is a coordinated "chain of survival",2 which would include rapid access to skilled care, early CPR and defibrillation. What was initially less clear was how such . . . [Full text of this article]


Related Article

The obstacles to maximising the impact of public access defibrillation: an assessment of the dispatch mechanism for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest
K J Cairns, A J Hamilton, A H Marshall, M J Moore, A A J Adgey, and F Kee
Heart 2008 94: 349-353. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]






HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS REGISTER
Terms and conditions relating to subscriptions purchased online  ¦  Website terms and conditions  ¦  Privacy policy
Copyright © 2008 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & British Cardiovascular Society