Potential cardiac arrest – an observational study of pre-hospital medical response

OBJECTIVES: A previous study showed that Norwegian GPs on call attended around 40% of out-of-hospital medical emergencies. We wanted to investigate the alarms of prehospital medical resources and the doctors' responses in situations of potential cardiac arrests. DESIGN AND SETTING: A three-month prospective data collection was undertaken from three emergency medical communication centres, covering a population of 816,000 residents. From all emergency medical events, a sub-group of patients who received resuscitation, or who were later pronounced dead at site, was selected for further analysis. RESULTS: 5,105 medical emergencies involving 5,180 patients were included, of which 193 met the inclusion criteria. The GP on call was alarmed in 59 %, and an anaesthesiologist in 43 % of the cases. When alarmed, a GP attended in 84 % and an anaesthesiologist in 87 % of the cases. Among the patients who died, the GP on call was alarmed most frequently. CONCLUSION: KEY POINTS: This study investigates alarms of and call-outs among GPs and anaesthesiologists on call, in the most acute clinical situations: Medical emergencies involving patients in need of resuscitation were rare. The health care contribution by pre-hospital personnel being called out was significant. Compared with other acute situations, the GP had a higher attendance rate to patients in life-threatening situations.