The National Registry of CPR collects data from in-hospital resuscitation events in more than 500 participating hospitals in the United States. In the latest publication, "Survival From In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest During Nights and Weekends"  the authors evaluated survival rates over a 7 year period for adults in-hospital cardiac arrest based on arrest time of day and day of week.

As expected the results showed that survival rates were worse during nights and weekends. The biggest areas of concern being operating room/postanesthesia care unit and the interventional catheterization laboratory. The differential did not hold true for the emergency or trauma units.

The authors believe that there are many factors that contribute to the decline at night and on the weekends.

 Some factors are:

 - Physicians perform psychomotor tasks less proficiently at night,

-  experienced workers often times do not get scheduled on night shifts, 

-  and fewer visitors means that the likelihood of detecting deterioration in an unmonitored patient is much less.

These are just a few reasons that are mentioned. The NRCPR believes that these stats can be fixed with additional training, such as mock codes and cardiac resuscitation simulation. Also, with the addition of schedule changes taken into account alternating weekends and nights to boost proficiency.

You can follow this link to see the whole article.

Heat stroke kills over 4,000 people annually, and thousands more suffer heat-related illnesses and injuries every year. Heat illness occurs when the body retains more heat than it loses. Core temperature rises as a result. Workers are at greater risk of heat illness when they are dehydrated, not used to working in a hot environment, in poor health, older, or have had heat illness before.

Heat related illness usually have a starting point of dehydration and if ignored or accelerated can lead to heat exhaustion and eventually heat stroke. If you keep your body hydrated, you can generally keep yourself safe all summer long.

If you are someone who works in the elements or just enjoys the outdoors than DRINK FLUIDS!

Let me ask you this question, Have you ever been or are you thirsty right now?

If the answer to this questions is YES than you are or have been dehydrated. At the point that you are thirsty it is to late, it is going to be much harder to re-hydrate yourself. Preventative maitnence is the best way to go.

You have to put oil in the motor of your vehicle to keep it running smoothly and keep the internal parts lubed up. Water does the same thing for your body, you need to keep it lube up and running smooth by puttting fluids in it.

You can learn more about heat illnesses and other summer issues when you take a First Aid class. Learn how to take care of yourself and your family.

Happy Summer Everyone!

It has been a long time coming. The Federal Government has taken another step to help the chance of survival for victims of sudden cardiac arrest.They have declared the first week of June "National Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Automated External Defibrillator (AED) Awareness Week".

In a staggering study it is found that there is a 95 percent mortality rate for over 300,000 Americans who are victims of sudden cardiac arrest each year.

It is also estimated that on average it takes 8 to 10 minutes for first responders(9-1-1) to reach a victim. This number can vary depending on your location. Why is this important?

The reason that this is so important is because after four minutes without oxygen going to your brain it will begin to die. After eight minutes it becomes the point of no return, irreversible brain death begins to occur. So even if the heart is restarted, the damage after eight minutes can never come back. This is why we need people to do CPR.

You can read the whole article that was released by clicking here.

 This is an important step for making a difference. If people now become more aware of this situation and learn how YOU can make a difference than we can change these statistics and have a positive outcome for victims of sudden cardiac arrest. There are also programs out there that are now trying to make a difference such as:

• AED Implementation programs
• Public Access to Defibrillators (PAD) Program
• HeartSafe Community
• Family & Friends CPR and First Aid

With a lot of attention now on these issues we hope to start to create safer environment for everyone.