December 12, 2007
VICTORIA - The BC Ambulance Service is reporting a 20 per cent increase in cardiac arrest survival rates, attributed to improvements in the care given by BC Ambulance Service paramedics, Health Minster George Abbott announced today.
The BCAS is working in partnership with the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC) - a resuscitation research initiative, first responders, and the emergency medicine research team at St. Paul's Hospital - to improve survival rates of cardiac arrest victims.
"This is the first provincewide cardiac arrest research report produced as part of the ROC initiative," said Abbott. "It shows that through focused dispatcher and paramedic training and education in new CPR techniques the BC Ambulance Service is saving more lives."
Known contributors to cardiac arrest survival include: early bystander CPR, rapid response times, quality professional CPR, and early defibrillation. To improve these known contributors, the BC Ambulance Service delivered targeted training to paramedics and emergency medical dispatchers throughout the province in new CPR techniques. This included holding around 300 CPR courses at locations throughout the province for approximately 3,000 paramedics and also supporting CPR instructions to first responders.
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