Defibrillator Design and Usability May Be Impeding Timely Defibrillation

Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety
Marc ReesonGianni D'Egidio

Abstract

Timely defibrillation is the only rhythm-specific therapy proven to increase survival to hospital discharge following cardiac arrest secondary to ventricular tachyarrhythmia. Delayed defibrillation occurs in more than 30% of this population. A study was conducted to test the hypothesis that unintuitive defibrillator design and lack of usability are barriers to timely defibrillation, as measured by time to defibrillation and the proportion of defibrillations delivered within 2 minutes. A mixed-methods (qualitative and quantitative) prospective usability study was performed to evaluate the use of a defibrillator in a simulated hospital environment. Participants were asked to perform two simulated tasks typical of in-hospital cardiac arrest care: defibrillation and synchronized cardioversion. The average time to defibrillation was 4 minutes 21 seconds. Only 9.1% of participants (2/22) performed a defibrillation within 2 minutes. Participants had difficulty with several aspects of defibrillator use, including attaching the hands-free defibrillator electrode pads and selecting an appropriate display. Participants rated defibrillator design 4.2 ± 1.8 (mean, standard deviation) on a perceived usability scale (1 = "poorly designed"; 9 ...Continue Reading

Citations

Aug 16, 2019·Anesthesiology·John A Stewart
Mar 27, 2021·Resuscitation·Clément DerkenneUNKNOWN Paris Fire Brigade Cardiac Arrest Task Force

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