Concurrent Block #5

Special Interest

Leveraging the Principles of HeartSafe Communities® to Create a Culture of Excellence and Improve Community Engagement

Upping the Game from ROSC to Neurologically Intact

Friday, December 1, 2023

10:50 AM – 11:05 AM PST

Location: Sunset Rooms 1 - 3

Primary Presenter(s)

Ashley S. Terrana (she/her/hers)

EMS Captain
Palm Beach Gardens Fire Rescue
Palm Beach Gardens, FL, United States

Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose

Moderator(s)

MG

Marc Gay

Disclosure information not submitted.

Disclosure(s):

Ashley S. Terrana: No financial relationships to disclose

Summary: What inspired Palm Beach Gardens (FL) Fire Rescue and our city officials to build a HEARTSafe Community®? We will take you through the who, what, why, where and how, of our journey, documenting the the struggles as welll as the the successes.

Synopsis: Our community has a tremendous success rate in resuscitating cardiac arrest patients with a four-year average rate of 38% as compared to the Florida state four-year average of 21%, and a four-year average rate of 29% for neurologically intact patients, which is well above the national average of five%.

We know without a shadow of a doubt that the one component that every neurologically intact cardiac arrest patient had in common was bystander CPR prior to the arrival of EMS. We’ll review how we gather our quarterly cardiac arrest data and the three primary data points we examine. We’ll show in detail how we reached, engaged, and taught 15% of our community Hands-Only CPR and the use of an AED. You’ll learn the process we went through as we built an expansive and impressive AED registry within our jurisdiction using PulsePoint AED. You’ll learn the value of building relationships and partnerships within your community (businesses, HOA’s, hospitals, schools, etc.). You’ll understand the costs of building a HEARTSafe Community® and grant writing for the purchase of equipment to offset those costs. Most importantly we will highlight how to empower and educate your community to save a life.

Learning Objectives:

We will present our experience with building a sustainable HEARTSafe community program that highlights the importance that our community plays as the first link in the chain of survival. We will challenge everyone to not be content with achieving ROSC but delivering a neurologically intact patient with an excellent quality of life post cardiac arrest.
This presentation will include ways to educate citizens that can lead to a comprehensive change to a culture of excellence and improved CPR training in the community, schools and workplace.
This presentation will discuss how to implement three (3) elements of a comprehensive dispatch CPR and/or rapid dispatch program.
This presentation will discuss ways to advance Public Access AED placement and utilization.
This presentation will include components of a high quality collaborative cardiovascular and resuscitation program in a dispatch, EMS and / or healthcare system that has demonstrated improvement in survival from SCA.
This presentation will include strategies for implementing data collection and quality improvement programs in an ECC system to support accountability and reporting.
This presentation will describe three (3) strategies for implementing effective support systems for cardiac arrest victims, survivors and their families and rescuers.
This presentation will describe one or more survivor / rescuer stories that can be used to illustrate an effective chain of survival for cardiac arrest.