ICDs Spark Drop in Cardiac Arrests

Nice headline, MedPage Today:

Rates of resuscitation for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest have fallen as more patients receive implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), Dutch researchers found.

In one province in the Netherlands, incidence of resuscitation for cardiac arrest due to ventricular fibrillation dropped from 21.1 per 100,000 persons per year to 19.4 over the course of a decade as ICDs became more widespread (P<0.001), Rudolph Koster, MD, PhD, of Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, and colleagues reported online in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The shift could account for about 33% of the decline in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest due to ventricular fibrillation seen in the study, they wrote

Web-Based Suicide and Substance Abuse Screening Training for ED Staff

From Kognito:

According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, ten percent of those who complete suicide have been seen in an ED in the two months prior to death. Furthermore, with a growing understanding of alcohol and substance abuse as a risk factor for suicide and over 4 million ED visits annually for alcohol-related conditions, there is a clear need to involve ED staff in screening and intervening with patients at risk, even if the reason for the ED visit seems unrelated. Yet, many EDs are ill-equipped to address mental illness or substance use disorders, so it is not surprising that many ED patients are discharged without an appropriate intervention or referral. At-Risk in the ED can help to efficiently screen patients for suicidality and substance use disorders and manage their care effectively to reduce ED overcrowding, lower rates of hospitalization and readmissions, and achieve The Joint Commission’s goals for suicide prevention.

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