Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Hong Kong: a territory-wide study

Public access defibrillation in Hong Kong in 2017

“…33 It is therefore not surprising to find that the time to first defibrillation is an independent predictor of OHCA survival in Hong Kong. 1 Over the past 20 years, there has been a remarkable improvement in the time from arrest recognition to first defibrillation. The time interval was shortened by nearly 11 minutes from 23 minutes to 12 minutes.…”

“…The time interval was shortened by nearly 11 minutes from 23 minutes to 12 minutes. 1,34 A possible important contribution to this improvement is the reduced recognitionto-activation interval from over 7 minutes to almost instantly. The reason for this reduction is unknown although wider use of mobile phones is a possibility.…”

“…The number of survivors with good neurological outcome is even smaller (one in 67 persons with OHCA). 1 Public access defibrillation (PAD) has been proposed as a strategy to improve survival. The concept was first put forward by the American Heart Association Task Force on Automatic External Defibrillation in 1995.…”

Public access defibrillation: the road ahead

“…From a series in 2012-2013, only 2.3% of all OHCA patients survived to discharge, a rate considered low compared with other developed countries in Asia. 1,2 Meanwhile, the survival-to-discharge rate for OHCA in Singapore has doubled over the last 10 years because of the improved emergency medical services response time and the successful public access defibrillation (PAD) programme. 3 Early defibrillation is one of the most important elements in the Chain of Survival.…”

Protection of rescuers in emergency care: where does Hong Kong stand?

“…Bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) should be initiated as soon as possible, preferably when the patient collapses. 1 Fan et al 2 recently reported 5154 cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) among which bystander CPR and automated external defibrillator (AED) use were performed in 28.8% and 1.4% of cases, respectively. Another Hong Kong study at a teaching hospital in 2005 showed that bystander CPR was offered in 15% of OHCA patients.…”