Institute of Medicine report on cardiac arrest

The IOM report on cardiac arrest was released on June 30. A summary of the report in JAMA is here. The report calls for improvements in data reporting, public education, EMS capability, accreditation standards, quality improvement initiatives, research funding, translating evidence into practice, and the establishment of a national collaborative.

Unfortunately the report is badly out of date in that it ignores the spectacular results or research by Ewy and his Arizona colleagues reported over the past decade. In a recent summary of that research Ewy wrote:

Decades of research and ongoing reviews of the literature led the University of Arizona Sarver Heart Center Resuscitation Research Group to conclude in 2003 that the national guidelines for patients with primary cardiac arrest were not optimal. Therefore, we instituted a new, nonguidelines approach to the therapy of primary cardiac arrest that dramatically improved survival.

You can go to the link and read the rest. That single paragraph, in my opinion, contains more pertinent information on the current state of resuscitation care than the entire 240 page IOM report.