North East Ambulance Service is taking part in a trial involving patients who have suffered a cardiac arrest by providing real-time ventilation feedback to ambulance clinicians
Information about this research
A cardiac arrest occurs when the heart suddenly stops beating. NHS ambulance services attend approximately 30,000 cardiac arrests each year to provide cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). CPR involves pushing up and down on the patient’s chest, chest compressions, and breathing for the patient, ventilations. Some patients respond to CPR and their heart starts beating again.
In the past it has been difficult to measure ventilations during CPR so less research has been done on ambulance clinician ventilations than on chest compressions. However, new technology enables ambulance clinicians to receive real-time visual feedback on their ventilations. We think that the feedback will help ambulance clinicians deliver better ventilations which may improve the chances of someone surviving a cardiac arrest.
The aim of the VANZ3 study is to complete a small trial of ventilation feedback during CPR by ambulance clinicians to decide if a larger trial is feasible and how best can it be conducted.
Methods:
This study will involve ambulance clinicians in North East Ambulance Service (NEAS). The defibrillators used in NEAS will be set to show visual feedback on the defibrillator screen. In some cases, the ambulance clinician will receive feedback and in some cases they won’t. This will be decided by chance. This is known as a randomised controlled trial and is the best way of finding out which treatment is most effective. All patients will continue to receive all other normal treatments during CPR. We will follow up all patients involved in the study to see if they survive and how well they recover.
Consent process:
As patients involved in this study will be in cardiac arrest, we will not be able to seek consent from them in the normal fashion. We will approach any survivors, or their representatives, for consent when they are in hospital and the hospital team caring for them decides that the patient is well enough to be approached for a discussion about the study.
Data being collected:
During this study we will collect data on the care delivered by the ambulance service including details of the resuscitation process and the ventilations delivered. We will also collect data identifying patients who are transferred to hospital so that we can link the ambulance records with the hospital records and find out what happened to these patients.
As part of this study, we will have to access and collect confidential information on the care and treatment of the patient recorded by the ambulance service and hospital to see what impact ventilation feedback makes on care. This information will be kept secure by the research team.
Outcomes:
Results from the study will be shared with clinicians involved in resuscitation, academics and interested members of the public. This study will help us decide if a bigger study of ventilation feedback is needed and how to best deliver the bigger study.
Contact:
If you have any questions please contact the lead researcher graham.
Contact address: Graham McClelland, Northumbria University, Room H007, Coach Lane Campus East, Benton, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE7 7XA.
Contact phone: 0191 215 6714
Opting out of this study:
If you do not wish to be involved in this study and want to opt-out, please contact graham.
If you have previously indicated your wish not to be involved in research via the national data opt out, this will be noted in your medical records accessible by the ambulance service and will be respected.
Approvals:
This study has been approved by the NHS Health Research Authority, has been reviewed by the North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 1 NHS ethics committee which gave a favourable opinion (reference 26/NE/0068) and has been reviewed by the Confidentiality Advisory Group (CAG). Following CAG review the study is supported by Section 251 support (Regulation 5 of the COPI Regulations) from the Health Research Authority (reference 26/CAG/0048).