Overview

"It's Time For Data And Information To Replace Anecdotes And Impressions
Surrounding In-Hospital Resuscitations." – Beth Mancini

The American Heart Association provides guidelines on how to report and review in-hospital resuscitations, but how many hospitals have developed the processes to do this? It's fair to say that the role of documentation at a code is not a desirable one, and that often the least experienced person is asked to document on a form with which s/he is not familiar. Difficulty in transcribing illegible writing into an EMR, lack of time stamps, and missing information such as ET tube placement and size are commonplace.

The Joint Commission provides standards on how to use the CPR data to review the quality of care processes and outcomes at resuscitations. If your data is submitted to Get with the Guidelines (GWTG), you will have aggregate data from your institution that can be benchmarked with similar institutions. Both GWTG and electronic resuscitation data management programs from defibrillator vendors provide automatic graphs of the aggregate CPR data to use when discussing variances of concern within your hospital.

When documentation on paper is considered acceptable at your institution and few complaints are heard, it may seem like the process is working well. But if you want to move forward with process improvements, then use accurate and complete CPR data to direct the actions of your CPR committee.