Ventricular fibrillation in King Country, Washington: A 30-year perspective

Aim: We determined the effect of four major program changes over a 30-year period or. vival from witnessed cardiac arrest (CA) with ventricular fibrillation (VF) as the rhythm ca collapse. Methods: We conducted an investigation of emergency medical services (EMS)-treated CAo ring between 1978 and 2007. Data were obtained from a registry maintained by the King Cc Emergency Medical Services Division. Using Utstein style definitions, we measured chang patient survival in tight of four programs that were implemented during the span of the s defibrillation by emergency medical technicians (EMTs), dispatcher-assisted cardiopulmc resuscitation (CPR), public access defibrillation, and a CPR-defibrillation protocol that rep[ delivery of three sequential shocks with administration of one shock followed by 2 min of Results: Overall survival from witnessed VF during the study period was 34%. While demographic characteristics of patients in CA remained constant, we observed greater rates of survival i years following the program changes, 1983-2006, compared to survival in the period before changes, 1977-1982. The greatest increase in survival occurred following the CPR-defibrill protocol change in 2005. Conclusion: Despite adverse temporal trends, the four program changes appear to have tributed to increasing survival rates from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in King County. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.