Watchdog recommends more senior doctor involvement

Hospital heart attacks warning
More than one third of cardiac arrests in hospitals could be prevented if doctors recognise and act on early warning signs more quickly, a health watchdog has said.
ITV News
June 1, 2012

Report author and NCEPOD lead clinical co-ordinator Dr George Findlay said:

Senior doctors must be involved in the care-planning process for acutely ill patients at an earlier stage and support junior doctors to recognise the warning signs when a patient is deteriorating.

The lack of senior input fails patients by both missing the opportunity to halt deterioration and also by failing to question if CPR will actually improve outcome.

38% of heart attacks in hospitals 'could be prevented'

Cardiac arrests in hospitals could be prevented if doctors recognise and act on early warning signs more quickly, a health watchdog has said.

More than a third (38%) of cardiac arrests in acutely ill patients could be avoided by improving their assessment and response to deterioration, researchers found. Experts from the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) criticised senior doctors for failing their patients by not supporting junior colleagues. The study, "Time To Intervene?", found that warning signs were not picked up in 35% of those patients, not acted on in 56% and not communicated to senior doctors in 55%.

Hospitals slow on cardiac arrest treatment at night

Cardiac arrest: avoid nights, weekend, study says
Wed Feb 20, 2008
Daytime dozing may be warning sign of stroke
Reuters


CHICAGO (Reuters) - People who have a cardiac arrest in the hospital at night or on the weekend are far less likely to survive than those who suffer one during the day, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

Studies suggest this may be at least partly because of inadequate staffing at off-peak hours.

The researchers found only 14.7 percent of people whose hearts stop pumping during the night survive, compared with nearly 20 percent of people during the day.

Those who had a cardiac arrest at around 3 p.m. had the survival rate, Dr. Mary Ann Peberdy of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and colleagues reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The only part of the hospital with difference in survival day or night was the emergency department. "That survival difference by time of day was there regardless of where we looked, except in the emergency department," Peberdy said...

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN1929246120080220?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100