• Resuscitation · Mar 2008

    An observational study describing the geographic-time distribution of cardiac arrests in Singapore: what is the utility of geographic information systems for planning public access defibrillation? (PADS Phase I).

    • Marcus Eng Hock Ong, Eng Hoe Tan, Xiuyuan Yan, P Anushia, Swee Han Lim, Benjamin Sieu-Hon Leong, Victor Yeok Kein Ong, Ling Tiah, Susan Yap, Jerry Overton, and V Anantharaman.
    • Department of Emergency Medicine, Singapore General Hospital, Outram Road, Singapore. marcus.ong.e.h@sgh.com.sg
    • Resuscitation. 2008 Mar 1;76(3):388-96.

    IntroductionPublic access defibrillation (PAD) has shown potential to increase cardiac arrest survival rates.ObjectivesTo describe the geographic epidemiology of prehospital cardiac arrest in Singapore using geographic information systems (GIS) technology and assess the potential for deployment of a PAD program.MethodsWe conducted an observational prospective study looking at the geographic location of pre-hospital cardiac arrests in Singapore. Included were all patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) presented to emergency departments. Patient characteristics, cardiac arrest circumstances, emergency medical service (EMS) response and outcomes were recorded according to the Utstein style. Location of cardiac arrests was spot-mapped using GIS.ResultsFrom 1 October 2001 to 14 October 2004, 2428 patients were enrolled into the study. Mean age for arrests was 60.6 years with 68.0% male. 67.8% of arrests occurred in residences, with 54.5% bystander witnessed and another 10.5% EMS witnessed. Mean EMS response time was 9.6 min with 21.7% receiving prehospital defibrillation. Cardiac arrest occurrence was highest in the suburban town centers in the Eastern and Southern part of the country. We also identified communities with the highest arrest rates. About twice as many arrests occurred during the day (07:00-18:59 h) compared to night (19:00-06:59 h). The categories with the highest frequencies of occurrence included residential areas, in vehicles, healthcare facilities, along roads, shopping areas and offices/industrial areas.ConclusionWe found a definite geographical distribution pattern of cardiac arrest. This study demonstrates the utility of GIS with a national cardiac arrest database and has implications for implementing a PAD program, targeted CPR training, AED placement and ambulance deployment.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…