by
Loren Bonner, DOTmed News Online Editor | July 16, 2012
From the July 2012 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
“Most people don’t do CPR often enough to become experts. In other words, quality declines quickly and rescuers often have to switch off, leaving gaps in the CPR flow. That affects not only overall survival, but also defibrillator efficacy. You want good CPR being done up until the shock. The longer you wait with hands off the chest, the defibrillator shock is less effective,” says Pollock.
Emergency kits
The Zoll defibrillators used by the UC San Diego team also had built in End-Tidal Carbon Dioxide monitoring to guide the quality of the CPR. Users can look for these values, displayed during cardiac arrest, to adequately gauge blood flow and O2 exchange during resuscitation.
Capnography—the measurement and numerical display of End-Tidal Carbon Dioxide—is another important feature highlighted in the 2010 AHA guidelines.
“So if you’re doing CPR and you have a low capnography, then you need to push harder. And there are some recommendations in the guidelines that say if you’re not at a certain level, you should be doing better CPR. It’s really becoming a measure of overall resuscitation,” says Pollack.
Physio-Control LIFEPACK15
The LIFEPACK 15 has capnography measurements built in, but they also sell a standalone capnography module for people who want a hand-held device. Pollack describes this unit as a portable resuscitation unit or emergency care unit because it can do many more things than defibrillation, monitoring and pacing.
Some of the newest parameters on the device are temperature monitoring for hypothermia and a carboxyhemoglobin feature to detect carbon monoxide in the blood and methemoglobin in the blood, which results from exposure to certain drugs and chemicals.
Smaller but just as powerful
This year, manufacturers have released smaller and more compact defibrillators. Zoll’s lightweight, portable X Series Monitor/Defibrillator received 510(k) clearance from the Food and Drug Administration in March.
“We think it’s going to be a game-changing product and will set a whole new standard in that category,” says Hamilton. The device is being marketing to the pre-hospital environment and provides every advanced monitoring and communication capability required by EMS providers. But in a device that’s less than 12 pounds— nearly half the weight of most others on the market.
