Relationship Between Emergency Medical Services Response Time and Bystander Intervention in Patients With Out‐of‐Hospital Cardiac Arrest

BACKGROUND: The response time of emergency medical services (EMS) is an important determinant of survival after out‐of‐hospital cardiac arrest. We sought to identify upper limits of EMS response times and bystander interventions associated with neurologically intact survival. METHODS AND RESULTS: We analyzed the records of 553 426 patients with out‐of‐hospital cardiac arrest in a Japanese registry between 2010 and 2014. The primary study end point was 1‐month neurologically intact survival (Cerebral Performance Category scale 1 or 2). Increased EMS response time was associated with significantly decreased adjusted odds of 1‐month neurologically intact survival (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] for each 1‐minute increase, 0.89; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.89–0.90), although this relationship was modified by bystander interventions. The bystander interventions and the ranges of EMS response times that were associated with increased adjusted 1‐month neurologically intact survival were as follows: bystander defibrillation, from ≤2 minutes (aOR, 3.10 [95% CI, 1.25–7.31]) to 13 minutes (aOR, 5.55 [95% CI, 2.66–11.2]); bystander conventional cardiopulmonary resuscitation, from 3 minutes (aOR 1.48 [95% CI, 1.02–2.12]) to 11 minutes (aOR 2.41 [95% CI, 1.61–3.56]); and bystander chest‐compression‐only cardiopulmonary resuscitation, from ≤2 minutes (aOR 1.57 [95% CI, 1.01–2.25]) to 11 minutes (aOR 1.92 [95% CI, 1.45–2.56]). However, the increase in neurologically intact survival of those receiving bystander interventions became statistically insignificant compared with no bystander interventions when the EMS response time was outside these ranges. CONCLUSIONS: The upper limits of the EMS response times associated with improved 1‐month neurologically intact survival were 13 minutes when bystanders provided defibrillation (typically with cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and 11 minutes when bystanders provided cardiopulmonary resuscitation without defibrillation.