ProCPR Blog

What we hear from our clients daily revolves around two key points:
1. Must I have staff trained every year? Time and money are in short supply.
2. May I have my staff certify every year? Two years between certifications is too long to retain proper skills.

Unless your state mandates annual training, there are some providers that may adjust the certification cycle between one or two years depending on your preference or requirement. Studies indicate that if CPR is not used or reviewed every 13 weeks (give or take), vital information and the confidence to respond to a crisis is greatly diminished.*

The point is even once a year is too long between certifications, thus frequent review of the material becomes more critical. ProTrainings.com is one provider that offers weekly video refreshers by email after certification to ensure better results and more confidence regardless of the certification timeline. Employers now have the best of both worlds, frequent review with a longer time between certifications.

A student from Harbor High School went into cardiac arrest during his physical education class on Wednesday morning.

The students were jogging when the incident happened.  It was shortly after they had begun when the student fell to the ground.  Fellow students called out for the teacher, Bassel Faltas, who ran about 100 yards to the scene.  He also called 911 from his cell phone on the way.  By the time he reached the boy, he was still breathing, but later stopped.  The teacher began CPR before the paramedics arrived.

The student was taken to Dominican Hospital, and flown from there to Sanford University Medical Center, where he remains hospitalized.

The school has offered counseling to the students to discuss any of their concerns.

Things like this really reinforce the importance of students learning CPR in high school.

-via

When I was at the dentist, I heard an amazing story that I somehow missed over the weekend about a rescue at a football game.  He was at the game between Michigan and Notre Dame when he suffered a heart attack during the second quarter, while at Michigan Stadium.  He was visiting Ann Arbor with his three sons, who are aged 45, 48 and 50.  My dentist knows of the sons.

Lee Staudacher, a 69-year-old from Bay City, Michigan, was enjoying the game when his heart suddenly stopped.  There was a dentist nearby that started CPR while others contacted emergency services.  The CPR was prompt, increasing his chances of survival greatly, and there was an on-site AED (Automated External Defibrillator) that was also put to use.

His family stayed nearby and watched while they shocked him with the paddles, and the prompt CPR was a key component in saving his life.  The medical team took him to the University of Michigan Health System’s Cardiovascular Center for treatment.  He didn’t miss the end of the game, as he was able to watch part of the fourth quarter while in an intensive care unit bed.

He’s a Notre Dame fan, but had a great time watching the game between these two old rivals, even though Michigan pulled off a 35-31 victory.  He wants to put the focus on the knowledge of CPR and the quick access of the AED that saved his life, however.

With e-learning becoming more common, providers of some safety trainings are meeting the needs of administrators who have staff in many locations.

These trainings include CPR, First Aid and Bloodborne Pathogens.

Employers without internal training centers are turning more to accredited providers of web-based learning in these areas.

ProTrainings.com offers accredited group programs that allow employees to train in their location eliminating travel expenses and loss of productivity.

We have received many calls from employers looking to replace their Red Cross certification with an equivalent provider. They have all indicated they were notified of price increases in 2011.

In researching the changes in the Red Cross pricing they state, among other reasons:

“Establishing consistent, market-based pricing that enables the Red Cross to recover our costs and support our mission.”

They have also switched from one-year certification to two-year certification that brings them into alignment with most national providers of CPR certification.

Interesting to note, the price increase is nearly equal to web-based CPR and yet instructors must still teach the class.

A group in Canada studied nearly 10,000 cardiac arrest patients.  They divided their rescue teams into two groups: those who would perform 30-60 seconds of initial CPR, and those who would perform three minutes of CPR.  The results showed that about six percent of patients in both groups lived to be discharged from the hospital.

Where the numbers were rather shocking is in the ten percent of patients who had also received bystander CPR and were candidates for defibrilation.  Longer CPR actually decreased the odds of survival.

The study, which was published in the September 1 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that there is no reason to do two minutes of CPR or to delay defibrillation.  It doesn’t change anything for bystander CPR, however, so the message to the public is still the same.  Bystanders should start CPR right away, this trial does not address how helpful CPR is when delivered by a bystander at the scene.

Getting to the defibrillator sooner is more helpful for cardiac arrest patients.

-via Healthday

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Time to shine the spotlight on one of our customer support specialists.  Not only does he work tirelessly to ensure that our customers receive the best quality care, in his spare time he enjoys the thrill of high speed racing.

“My family has always shared a love of racing.”

This love of racing is shared with his wife, and they enjoy all forms of racing with all of the adrenaline fueled driving that comes with it.  The chance of a lifetime came last week that gave him the opportunity to feed his need for speed.  It was at the local drag racing strip, where he watched his friends race their souped up Chevy, when he was given a chance to drive on a race track.

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Now available in our First Aid products store: Automated External Defibrilators (AED).  We’re very excited to be able to offer AEDs for you and your company.  We’ve been working on making them available to you for a while.

Now you can make sure that you have everything you need to help provide the best care possible before healthcare professionals arrive on the scene to take over.

We offer Zoll and HeartSine AEDs, Pads, Cabinets and Mounting Brackets for your convenience.

Purchase an AED today!

Americans are relying more and more on social media, mobile technology and online news outlets to learn about ongoing disasters, seek help and share information about their well-being after emergencies, according to two new surveys conducted by the American Red Cross.

The surveys, one by telephone of the general population and a second online survey, continue to show that the vast majority of Americans believe response organizations should be both monitoring social media during disasters and acting quickly to help.

“Social media is becoming an integral part of disaster response,” said Wendy Harman, director of social strategy for the American Red Cross. “During the record-breaking 2011 spring storm season, people across America alerted the Red Cross to their needs via Facebook.  We also used Twitter to connect to thousands of people seeking comfort, and safety information to help get them through the darkest hours of storms.”

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Alzheimer’s disease is a very scary thing to go through.  Oftentimes the person going through it recognizes that they are, as they become less and less able to recall some of the simplest things.  There is currently a study on the effectiveness of improv on the well-being of Alzheimer’s patients.

“Improv is all about being in the moment, which for someone with memory loss, that is a very safe place,” says Mary O’Hara, a social worker at the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “Maybe thinking about the past and trying to remember makes the person a little anxious or even a bit sad because their memory is failing. And maybe thinking about the future too much is also anxiety-provoking. So being in the moment is such a safe and a good place to be.”

-via NPR

More information: Chicago News