Cardiac Arrest of Nonpatients Within Hospital Public Areas

Time to defibrillation is the most important controllable factor for survival. Hospitals also must respond to cardiac arrest in nonpatients (i.e., visitors and staff members) within their public areas. In-hospital cardiac arrest teams may be unaccustomed to resuscitating visitors under what is essentially a prehospital environment. All cardiorespiratory arrests over a 2-year period at the investigatorsʹ institution were reviewed. Six of the 749 in-hospital cardiorespiratory arrests (0.8%) occurred in visitors within public areas of the hospital. The average time to defibrillation for the public area cohort was significantly longer than for the in-hospital arrest control group (12.3 vs 2.5 minutes, p <0.0001). Further research is needed to reduce the time to defibrillation and consequently improve survival outcomes for cardiac arrest in hospital public areas.