Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is an under-appreciated health crisis in Canada. Every day over 100 hearts will suddenly stop beating and every year paramedics respond to an estimated 37,000 Canadians experiencing a SCA. However, even in the best communities, only 5%‒7% of SCA cases attended to by paramedics survive to return home. When a person collapses from a SCA, it must be recognized before anyone can call 9-1-1 or bystanders or family members can start cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). It is difficult in many cases for 9-1-1 dispatchers to correctly identify a cardiac arrest over the phone and be able to recommend the use of CPR or an AED to bystanders. Furthermore, in more than 75% of all SCAs, no one is there to witness the event, and survival is near 0%. This tragic number of deaths—more than 33,000 annually—is second only to cancer, and exceeds those from the current opioid crisis and the first year of the SARS CoV-2 pandemic combined.
Theme Projects
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Optimizing 9-1-1 Call Taker Recognition of SCA
If is often difficult for 9-1-1 call-takers to recognize a sudden cardiac arrest ( SCA) over the phone and be able to direct lay-responders to do CPR. Approximately 25% of SCAs are missed by dispatchers. Therefore, evaluating current response strategies, developing video assist and artificial intelligence based tools to help call takers more accurately recognize a cardiac arrest over the phone and upgrading training accodingly is crucial to improving survival from SCA.
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Biosensors to Detect Sudden Cardiac Arrest
Building effective and accurate sensors that can recognize the loss of circulation and then automatically notify a dispatch center of the location of the SCA patient will ensure that each SCA is “witnessed” immediately at the time of the collapse. Such sensors could increase the chance of survival in the current treated but “unwitnessed” group from 4%-16%. Sensors will also double the number of patients treatable by paramedics (rather than declaring futility due to lengthy intervals between collapse and discovery). Widespread use of biosensors would increase the number of cardiac arrest survivors nationally from 1,800 to 6,000 per year.