I read the paper on audiovisual feedback and CPR quality by Hostler
and colleagues with interest, particularly as the trust I work for
encourages the use of the monitoring "puck" during all CPR undertaken. It
certainly appears to be an important contribution to the current
literature.
On a fairly specific point I would be keen to know more about how the
individual EMS staff were selected for the study. Although the authors
mention that baseline EMS characteristics did not differ between the two
treatment arms, it may be beneficial to know the details of said
characteristics - was length of service taken into account? How many of
the 'EMS providers' were paramedics (as a pose to EMT's)? Furthermore, did
individuals in the clusters volunteer or were they 'conscripted'? Might it
be that EMS staff who were keen to be involved on a voluntary basis would
already be 'high performers', and hence would, for example, be more likely
to get involved with additional training and other opportunities that
would improve their practice?
Furthermore, in the interests of accuracy there is a 'typo' in Peter
Leman's otherwise very informative editorial; the penultimate paragraph
ends with "the mean depth of compressions...did not approach the currently
recommended depth of at least 50cm" - this should read 50mm (at least for
the majority of us who are strangers to their local gym's bench press!).
Rapid Response:
Re:Real-time feedback and quality of CPR
Dear Editor,
I read the paper on audiovisual feedback and CPR quality by Hostler
and colleagues with interest, particularly as the trust I work for
encourages the use of the monitoring "puck" during all CPR undertaken. It
certainly appears to be an important contribution to the current
literature.
On a fairly specific point I would be keen to know more about how the
individual EMS staff were selected for the study. Although the authors
mention that baseline EMS characteristics did not differ between the two
treatment arms, it may be beneficial to know the details of said
characteristics - was length of service taken into account? How many of
the 'EMS providers' were paramedics (as a pose to EMT's)? Furthermore, did
individuals in the clusters volunteer or were they 'conscripted'? Might it
be that EMS staff who were keen to be involved on a voluntary basis would
already be 'high performers', and hence would, for example, be more likely
to get involved with additional training and other opportunities that
would improve their practice?
Furthermore, in the interests of accuracy there is a 'typo' in Peter
Leman's otherwise very informative editorial; the penultimate paragraph
ends with "the mean depth of compressions...did not approach the currently
recommended depth of at least 50cm" - this should read 50mm (at least for
the majority of us who are strangers to their local gym's bench press!).
Competing interests: No competing interests