PubMed · 10280387
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J Stout. 1986. Computer-aided what?. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10280387/
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The chain-of-survival concept is an established principle in the treatment of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Survival is improved when out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is followed by a sequence of events: early access to help, early cardiopulmonary resuscitation, early defibrillation and early advanced care. The Danish emergency medical system is only to some extent in accordance with the standards of the chain-of-survival concept. The current way of evaluating the efficiency of the system is based mainly upon the driving time for the ambulance, but the time that counts for the patient is the time between the emergency call and the start of adequate treatment. Options for defibrillation and--in some cities--advanced life support are good, but hard to exploit as ambulances frequently arrive too late for treatment to be effective.
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OBJECTIVE: To review the evidence that recording a prehospital 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) reduces time from hospital arrival to initiation of reperfusion therapy for acute myocardial infarction (AMI). DATA SOURCES: Medline search from 1966 to the present (articles in all languages) and examination of bibliographies. STUDY SELECTION: Published studies of prehospital 12-lead ECG recording that included control groups and reported time intervals from hospital arrival to start of reperfusion therapy. DATA EXTRACTION: Eight articles satisfied selection criteria (two randomised controlled trials, four non-randomised interventional studies and two prospective observational studies). DATA SYNTHESIS: Widely varying study methodologies precluded meta-analysis. All studies had methodological problems, but hospital delays were consistently reduced. Such improvements appear to be small in hospitals where delays are already minimal. CONCLUSIONS: Little evidence is available to support routine prehospital 12-lead ECG recording if the median hospital time to reperfusion is already less than 30 minutes. Improvement of in-hospital treatment times may be a better initial strategy than prehospital 12-lead ECG recording, as this will benefit more patients and allow ambulance services to better allocate their available resources.