Improving access to extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for out of hospital cardiac arrest: pre-hospital ECPR and alternate delivery strategies

Background :The use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECPR) in refractory out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients is usually implemented in-hospital. As survival in ECPR patients is critically time-dependent, alternative models in ECPR delivery could improve equity of access.Objectives: To identify the best strategy of ECPR delivery to provide optimal patient access, to examine the time-sensitivity of ECPR on predicted survival and to model potential survival benefits from different delivery strategies of ECPR.Methods: We used transport accessibility frameworks supported by comprehensive travel time data, population density data and empirical cardiac arrest time points to quantify the patient catchment areas of the existing in-hospital ECPR service and two alternative ECPR strategies: rendezvous strategy and pre-hospital ECPR in Sydney, Australia. Published survival rates at different time points to ECMO flow were applied to predict the potential survival benefit.Results: With an in-hospital ECPR strategy for refractory OHCA, five hospitals in Sydney (Australia) had an effective catchment of 811,091 potential patients. This increases to 2,175,096 under a rendezvous strategy and 3,851,727 under the optimal pre-hospital strategy. Assuming earlier provision of ECMO flow, expected survival for eligible arrests will increase by nearly 6% with the rendezvous strategy and approximately 26% with pre-hospital ECPR when compared to the existing in-hospital strategy.Conclusion: In-hospital ECPR provides the least equitable access to ECPR. Rendezvous and pre-hospital ECPR models substantially increased the catchment of eligible OHCA patients. Traffic and spatial modelling may provide a mechanism to design appropriate ECPR service delivery strategies and should be tested through clinical trials.

Automated summary

The study aimed to determine the best ECPR delivery strategy for optimal patient access, examine the time-sensitivity of ECPR in predicting survival, and model potential survival benefits from different ECPR delivery strategies. The results showed that the rendezvous and pre-hospital ECPR models significantly increased the catchment area of eligible OHCA patients.