Is Your Student Safe?

The beginning of another school year means the beginning of school sports including football, soccer, cross country and swimming. All too often, school sports result in injuries to athletes and, in some cases, incidents of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). Although SCA in athletes makes the headlines, it’s important to know that SCA can happen to anyone including a seemingly healthy child.

Sudden cardiac arrest in a young person usually stems from a structural defect in the heart or a problem with the heart’s electrical circuitry. The most frequent cause, accounting for about 40% of all cases, is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or HCM.

HCM is a genetic heart condition that affects 1: 500 individuals, including men, women and children of all ages. HCM is characterized by a thickening of the heart muscle and can lead to sudden cardiac arrest.

Approximately 50% of individuals with HCM experience no symptoms, and don’t even know they have the condition, until tragically, sudden cardiac arrest occurs.  In 9:10 cases the outcome is fatal, resulting in unimaginable grief for families and fellow students.  Yet better outcomes can be achieved with early electrical stimulation of the heart – delivered by a small, fully automated, easy to use box.

Given that educational institutions house more than 20% of the American population every day, you’d think they would be fully prepared for this eventually. But sadly, they are not.

At the time of writing, only 19: 50 states in the U.S. require that at least some of their schools have automated external defibrillators [AED’s].  In some states, AEDs are required in public, but not private schools. In other states, AEDs are required in high schools, but not elementary schools. Some states require AEDs only in schools offering athletics. Only two states – Hawaii and Oregon – require AEDs in colleges.

To find out whether your state requires AEDs in schools, click here to view an interactive map.

Although schools and colleges are ideal and obvious locations for AED deployment, concerns regarding legal liability and litigation have been perceived as a barrier to purchasing and deploying AEDs.  Fortunately this is slowly changing.  Recognition of the need to protect youth from sudden cardiac arrest is gaining momentum in many states:

In Pennsylvania, Sen. Andrew Dinniman has sponsored Senate Bill 606, Aidan’s Law, named for Aidan Silva, a seven-year-old Chester County resident who succumbed to SCA in September 2010.  Aidan had no symptoms of a heart condition prior to his death. Aidan’s Law will help ensure that every public school in Pennsylvania has an AED that is up to date and ready to use.

Rep. Connie Pillich, of Cincinnati, has introduced a bill focused on SCA in student athletes. House Bill 180 requires the Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Department of Education to jointly develop guidelines and materials to educate students, parents and coaches about SCA. The measure bans a student from participating in a school-sponsored athletic activity until the student submits a signed form acknowledging receipt of the guidelines and materials created by the health and education departments. Individuals would not be allowed to coach a school-sponsored athletic activity unless the individual has completed, within the previous year, a sudden cardiac arrest training course approved by the health department.

John Ellsessar, whose son Michael died during an Oxford High School football game in 2010 from cardiac arrest, believes automated external defibrillators should be as readily available at school settings as fire extinguishers.

Ellsessar, is pushing for legislation to require all schools to have defibrillators, said he and his wife were horrified when they learned that at most schools that have the medical devices, but they are locked away in nurses’ offices, instead of being ready for emergencies.

And in Rhode Island, high school seniors will be required to be trained in CPR and the use of a defibrillator before they can graduate. Under the legislation signed into law by Gov. Lincoln Chafee, students will receive training that includes a hands-on course in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and an overview of the use of an AED.

The National Parent Teacher Association has also adopted a resolution calling for public schools to develop emergency response plans that include summoning help, performing CPR and using automated external defibrillators to save lives. The PTA also called for ongoing CPR-AED training in schools and legislation that would fund placement of AEDs in every school, while providing immunity for people who use the lifesaving devices in good faith.

To learn more about sudden cardiac arrest and how you can help please visit http://www.sca-aware.org

Should You Stay or Should You Go?

Picture this familiar scene. A critically injured person is wheeled into the emergency room by paramedics. Concerned, shocked and occasionally hysterical family members rush to the patient’s side. An army of doctors, nurses and techs begin emergency resuscitation efforts, inserting breathing tubes, CPR, starting IV’s, drawing blood, administering drugs and other fluids.  One of these health care professionals, nodding toward the family and screaming “Get them out of here!”

We’ve all see it… either in real life or on TV.

Cutting to the next scene, the family is escorted into a stark family crisis room. While healthcare staff work desperately to resuscitate the patient, a social worker updates the family on their progress. If the patient dies, staff  make him as presentable as possible, and then invite the family in to say good-byes. The social worker supports the family during this difficult time, and the code team return to their care of other patients.

For decades, this approach seemed to work well. The common wisdom was that if we did let the family in during the code, they’d either get in the way or become so distraught that we’d have more patients on our hands. Furthermore, we felt we were doing the family a greater service by letting them see their loved one only after we’d removed tubes and lines, even though the calm scene we produced was in total contradiction to actual events.

But recently, this traditional approach has been questioned. It turns out that many family members want to be present during resuscitation efforts, rather than hidden away in a side room.

And even though health care professionals are still divided on whether families should be present, most agree the issue must be addressed.

Now, research is starting to question whether family members be allowed to remain in the room as these potentially lifesaving efforts begin?

A two-year study led by a researcher Jane Leske PhD, has shown that family members – parents, spouses, fiancées and adult children – of trauma patients, can benefit by being present during critical moments of care.

“Those who do choose to do it really want to be there,” says Leske, professor of nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “They want to watch everything and get information. It lowers their anxiety and stress to see that everything possible is being done. Seeing is believing.”

However, family presence during resuscitation is controversial and underutilized. Indeed, many health care professionals and hospitals argue against it, concerned that the procedures may be too traumatic for family witnesses, or that family members may become emotionally out of control and interfere with care.

Leske conducted this study in collaboration with medical staff at a facility where families have the option of staying and observing resuscitation efforts. It compared outcomes for family members of patients, ages 18-93, with critical injuries from gunshot wounds or motor vehicle accidents at a Southeast Wisconsin Level 1 trauma center.  The center had offered family presence during resuscitation for more than two years by the time Leske’s study began.

The study focused on 140 family members over age 18, divided in two roughly equal groups – those who opted to remain with the victim during resuscitation; and those who chose not to, or were not able to reach the emergency department in time. Researchers interviewed family members within 72 hours after admission to the surgical intensive care unit, to discuss the family’s coping resources, communication and anxiety levels.

She and her research team found a number of benefits to having family members present, and no drawbacks.

They concluded that while families can benefit from being present during resuscitation, it’s also important that the hospital have policies and procedures in place on when and how to allow the option. For example, family presence during resuscitation should not be permitted when family members are intoxicated, extremely agitated or emotionally unstable.

Other researchers agree. A large French study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that relatives who did not witness CPR had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)–related symptoms of anxiety and depression more frequently than those who did witness CPR. Family-witnessed CPR did not affect resuscitation characteristics, patient survival, or the level of emotional stress in the medical team and did not result in medico-legal claims.

What are your thoughts on this?  Would you want to stay…or walk away.  Let us know.

Drugs That Can Land You in the Emergency Room

It’s midnight at the fire station and a call goes out for a patient who has overdosed. In addition to an ambulance and medic unit, police are dispatched.  As we stage for the police, to ensure that the scene is safe, we speculate as to what we’re going to encounter. Will the patient be conscious? What sort of emotional distress has driven them to this? Is it a serious attempt or a cry for help?  Will there be weapons?

As we mentally run through all types of scenarios, it’s doubtful that many of us have considered that our patient will be an 82 year old great grandmother armed with nothing more than her reading glasses and the remote control.

But increasingly that’s what we might find.  As Americans live longer, we have an increasingly frail population suffering from a greater number of chronic conditions, taking more medications than ever before. Among adults 65 years of age or older, 40% take 5 – 9 medications and 18% take 10 or more.

This type of polypharmacy is associated with an increased risk of adverse events. Older adults are nearly seven times as likely as younger persons to have adverse drug events that require hospitalization.

According to a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine blood thinners and diabetes drugs cause most of the unintentional overdoses that lead to emergency hospitalization in older patients.

Researchers reviewed the records of 100,000 hospitalization events due to major drug side effects in people aged 65 and above from a representative sample of 58 hospitals.  Almost half, (48%) of adverse drug event (ADE)-related hospitalizations occurred in patients older than 80.

The drugs they looked at included prescription and over-the-counter medications, vaccines, and dietary supplements.

Adverse events were categorized as allergic reactions, undesirable pharmacologic or idiosyncratic effects at recommended doses, or unintentional overdoses.  Other effects included problems due to medication-delivery methods (e.g., choking) and vaccine reactions. Visits for intentional self-harm, drug abuse, therapeutic failures, and drug withdrawal were excluded.

Shockingly, just four medications accounted for more than two-thirds of emergency hospitalizations:

• warfarin (a blood thinner to prevent clots) – 33%
• oral antiplatelet agents (for heart attack prevention) – 13.3%
• insulin (for diabetes) – 13.9%
• oral hypoglycemic agents (for diabetes) -10.7%

Given that emergency hospitalizations caused by ADEs result in significant morbidity and enormous costs it’s not surprising that decreasing harm to patients and reducing costs by preventing re hospitalizations is a goal of the $1 billion federal initiative Partnership for Patients.

Achieving a 20% reduction by the end of 2013 may sound ambitious, but in fact there are a number of simple steps that we can take.

1. Make sure that everyone taking medications has an up-to-date list, including all prescribed drugs as well as vitamins, herbs, and OTC medicines. Copies of the list should be kept in their wallet and should be shared with all doctors they see so that the potential for drug interactions can be assessed and avoided.
2. Alert your loved ones that blood thinners and diabetic medicines account for 50% of hospitalizations due to ADEs. Blood thinners and diabetes medications should be regularly monitored by the primary care physician.
3. Encouraging medication compliance can lengthen a person’s lifespan. Too many times patients stop their medications due to a comment made by a well-meaning friend who has  read something on the Internet. Often the doctor is not informed and the patient may not understand the positive effects of the medication or the dangers of stopping them suddenly.

These small measures may not only save the life of your elderly loved-ones, but they may also  reduce your Word on Health bloggers’ middle of the night 911 dispatches.

I Spy an AED

SRxA’s Word on Health loves a good challenge – and they don’t come much better than this.  A group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania are set to save lives with cell phone cameras… and they need help.

The MyHeartMap Challenge, will be a month-long contest starting in mid January. It will invite Philadelphians to the streets and social media sites to locate as many automated external defibrillators (AEDs) as they can. AEDs are lifesaving devices used to deliver a controlled electric shock and restore normal cardiac rhythm following a heart attack.  AED’s are widely used in hospitals and by pre-hospital providers such as EMT’s; but they can also be used by people with no medical training since they provide audio instructions that talk users through the process of performing CPR and defibrillation.

There’s an estimated one million AEDs across the nation. Some are hung clearly on the walls in airports and casinos, but others are tucked away in restaurant closets and under cash registers in coffee shops. Since  AEDs are not subject to regulations that would allow their makers to know where or when their devices are being used there’s currently no uniform system to track their location.

The contest hopes to change that.  Furthermore, it’s just a first step in what the Penn team hopes will grow to become a nationwide AED registry project that will put the lifesaving devices in the hands of anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Armed with a free app on their mobile phones, contest participants will snap pictures of the lifesaving devices wherever they find them in public places around the city. Contestants will then use the app to geotag the photos with their location and details about the device and send them to the research team via the app itself or the project’s web site.

The data collected will be used to create an updated app linking locations of all public AEDs in the city with a person’s GPS coordinates to help them locate the nearest AED during an emergency.

Better still – the person or team who finds the most AEDs during the contest will win $10,000. Additionally, people who find various pre-located “golden AEDs” around the city will win $50.

“More and more, scientists are learning that we can benefit from the wisdom of the crowd,” says MyHeartMap Challenge leader Raina Merchant, MD, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine. “Participation from ordinary citizens will allow us to answer questions and make the city safer than our team could ever do on its own.”

MyHeartMap Challenge participants can register as individuals or teams, and the Penn researchers suggest participants develop creative ways to maximize their chances of winning. If, for instance, a team can figure out how to use their social networks via Twitter and Facebook to engage people who work in public locations in Philadelphia to take photos of AEDs, the team could win $10,000 dollars without even leaving their desks. These “virtual teams” could prove to be faster and more efficient than any individual working alone. Participants can also organize AED scavenger hunts or mini-contests to locate all the AEDs in a workplace building, or compete against friends to see who can find the most devices. The researchers encourage participants to start strategizing and forming teams now so they can be first out of the gate to win.

What are you waiting for?

All Aboard for the Doctor on Board

How many of you have been settled, albeit uncomfortably, at 30,000 feet enjoying a movie or hastily putting the finishing touches to the PowerPoint presentation you are due to give in a couple of hours when you hear a familiar chime, followed by the flight attendant asking: “Is there a medical professional on board this aircraft?” Every year, more than 500 million people travel by air in the U.S. Not surprising then, that medical emergencies aboard aircrafts occur.  In fact, an estimated 1:10-40,000 passengers will experience one. With commercial air traffic increasing, these emergencies are expected to become more frequent, especially as the percentage of older people increases. Although flight attendants are required to undergo initial and recurrent training on aviation medicine, first aid, CPR and automated external defibrillator (AED) usage every 12–24 months, EMTs, paramedics and other medical professionals are still called upon to provide assessment and treatment of passengers who become ill in flight. Now, two U.S. physicians from Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have called for a standardization of the processes and the equipment for dealing with in-flight medical emergencies. Within the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Melissa Mattison, MD and Mark Zeidel, MD, note that the kinds of approaches that have improved flight safety have not been extended to providing optimal care for passengers who become acutely ill while on board airplanes. Each airline has its own reporting system and protocol. And while emergency medical kits are mandated to contain medications and equipment, actual kits vary by airline. As a result, paramedics and physicians responding to emergencies can face a broad array of challenges including cramped physical space, emergency kits whose contents are unfamiliar, inadequate, and poorly organized, and flight crews unaware of how best to assist the physicians. Mattison and Zeidel offer a four-step plan to improve the treatment of passengers who become ill in-flight:

• A standardized recording system for all in-flight medical emergencies, with mandatory reporting of each incident to the National Transportation Safety Board. This approach should include a systematic debriefing of anyone directly involved with the in-flight medical emergency.
• Airlines should create a standard emergency medical kit with identical elements available in identical locations on every flight.
• Enhanced and standardized training for flight attendants, including the clear obligation that a single flight attendant is assigned during emergencies and stay nearby until the patient is safe.
• Standardized flight crew communication with ground-to-air medical support available on all flights when there are no health care professionals available.

As both a frequent flyer and paramedic, I applaud the authors for this long overdue common sense approach. Have you ever helped with an in-flight emergency or perhaps been the victim of one?  If so, SRxA’s Word on Health would love to hear from you.