Tidsskrift for den Norske lægeforening : tidsskrift for praktisk medicin, ny række
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In Norway, every year more than 3000 persons suffer sudden cardiac death caused by ventricular fibrillation. The present recommendations of international expert committees are that the use of public-access defibrillators should be encouraged, including training of non-medical personnel. ⋯ Application of the strategy of public-access defibrillators will not result in significantly improved survival from cardiac arrest in Norway.
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Tidsskr. Nor. Laegeforen. · Feb 2004
[Urgent calls--prehospital response time in Vestfold and Troms in 2001].
Targeted emergency medical responses with minimum time loss require a well organized emergency medical system (EMS). We studied time consumption from emergency call reception to the arrival of the ambulance unit in two dispatch centres serving two demographically different Norwegian regions. ⋯ National standards for pre-hospital response times in medical emergencies are neither met in densely populated cities, nor in less populated rural areas.
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Tidsskr. Nor. Laegeforen. · Feb 2004
[Cardiopulmonary resuscitation in municipal health services--a simple program for training and maintenance].
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with defibrillation may be a life-saving procedure. We present a course for CPR training and skills preservation developed by local paramedics and GPs and aimed at primary care professionals. ⋯ The training is well received and courses fully booked. The optimal number of physicians is two to four. The success of the course suggests that there is a motivation for quality improvement in CPR in Norwegian local communities.
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Tidsskr. Nor. Laegeforen. · Feb 2004
[Physicians' work situation a year after the list patient system reform].
We describe general practitioners' (GPs') degree of satisfaction with the recently introduced Norwegian list patient system, based on information provided by GPs on the number of patients on their lists and their own assessment of their work situation. ⋯ Most GPs were satisfied with the new system and with the number of patients on their list. The importance to patients of being assigned to one GP is highlighted by the fact that GPs think they can do a better job when the practice has a high proportion of regular patients.
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Patients suspected of having an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) constitute a group with particularly high risk of developing cardiac arrest caused by ventricular fibrillation (VF). It is conceivable that a strategy of shortening the interval until defibrillation skills are brought to the patient can be more fruitful in rural areas than the now prevailing recommendations of obtaining rapid defibrillation after cardiac arrest is manifest. A project is being organized in a Norwegian rural municipality, where laymen are being trained in the use of automated external defibrillators (AEDs), and are organized in groups according to place of residence or work. ⋯ The main objective of a planned five-year study is to gather information as to what degree of mastering and what degree of stress the participants of the project experience, and to see if it is possible to maintain an organisation like this over a longer period of time. Preliminary results from the first half-year of the project indicate that the participants are entering the project with a reasonable degree of individual self-confidence and have even greater confidence in the group to which they belong. This might suggest that it is an advantage for participants in AED projects to be organised in groups in which mutual support is experienced.