Dear All,
I would welcome your views regarding cardiac arrest drugs for community
services.
I am trying to come up with a comprehensive "red box" in conjunction with
our local hospital pharmacy for use by GPs and Community Hospitals.
Having read the literature re: Calcium and Sodium Bicarbonate - I am tempted
to leave these items out, concentrating our efforts on epinephrine and
atropine for simplicity and evidence base. Also, a 999 ambulance will be
called to all community based arrests, but patients are not necessarily
going to be transported if dead.
Having no access to blood gas analysis limits our input, and having read
threads re: managing cardiac arrest in the community I doubt they have much
of a role.
Also there is an excellent review on the use of calcium in Pre-hospital
Emergency care, in an article summarizing the Resus Councils year 2000
recommendations (I can dig out the precise reference if requested).
It also makes me realise that there is a gap in the Resus Council's
guidelines in addressing specifically out of hospital cardiac arrest, by
GPs, community hospitals and even to some degree ambulance services.
All inputs welcome, offline if you feel not of general interest.
Many thanks
Jeremy (GP/ BASICS doc)
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