August 1, 2011
Stamford Hospital has been offering emergency heart attack intervention as a service to the community for more than three years with many great successes. We have also instituted a therapeutic hypothermia program for patients who remain comatose after cardiac arrest. Recently, we had two dramatic cases of young patients who would not have otherwise survived yet both walked out of the hospital. When looking into these successes we identified a few key components. One obvious component is Stamford Hospital’s close association with Stamford EMS. Another was not so obvious. Both patients received early Bystander CPR before EMS arrived. Without this support, the patients would not have been able to be resuscitated and would never have made it alive to Stamford Hospital’s Emergency Room.
Currently the City of Stamford’s rate of Bystander CPR is at approximately 30% of cardiac arrests. The national average is 27%. Seattle and King County Washington set the national high water mark with approximately 55-60% of all arrests and 80% of witnessed arrests receive this life sustaining therapy. This translates directly to improved patient outcomes. A series of studies in 2006 showed a survival rate of 45% in Seattle, WA and Rochester, MN compared with a less than 5% survival rate in Detroit, Chicago and New York. Stamford’s Survival rates are between 6 and 7% about average nationally. There are many factors involved here but the first link in the chain is a population that identifies the symptoms of a heart attack, early activation of 911 and early resuscitation if necessary.
I believe that we can easily improve upon our performance in Bystander CPR. CPR training for the lay population-including Hands-Only CPR without mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in many situations- has been streamlined and can now be done in a very short period of time. In order to help achieve this goal we started Hands For Life: Stamford to get out the message. This a joint project with help from the City of Stamford and Stamford Hospital. Our goal is to train everyone in Stamford in these life saving techniques and to build a community that supports these interventions. Towards that goal we are working on a project to break the World Record for the most people trained in one day. We will need everyone’s help.
We would love for your involvement in our program. In addition to training in hands-only CPR we are looking for contacts that you may have with local businesses, civic groups and religious institutions who may want to be involved as well. I have been amazed at the excitement this project has already created. I look forward to working with you directly on this project. Given what I have learned about the tightness of our community, I know that we can reach our goal of increasing CPR rates from 30% to 50% in one year. Please feel free to forward this link to anyone you think might be interested in getting involved. There are contact numbers below to let them become part of what I hope will be a life saving change for Stamford.
Thomas Nero, M.D., F.A.C.C.
Contacts:
Thomas Nero, M.D.
Phone: 203-863-4160
Information on CPR, Heart Disease and Your Health can be found at the following sites:
www.AmericanHeart.Org The American Heart Association web site
www.DSRedCross.Org The Darien/Stamford Red Cross web site
www.StamHealth.org The Stamford Hospital web site
www.LearnCPR.org CPR Site with information, and teaching tools
