Telephone-assisted cardiopulmonary resuscitation (T-CPR) provides assistance to the emergency caller. So far, it is known that T-CPR highly improves CPR performance. Little is known about T-CPR implementation and its practice across Europe. Implementation and quality of T-CPR might vary among EMD (emergency medical dispatch) organisations and dispatch centres (DCs). Therefore, EDiCeS was initiated to collect data from various European DCs via an online survey. The main objective was to evaluate how T-CPR is processed, with a special focus on agonal breathing and AED in the community.
Out of the 20 involved European countries 91 DCs and/or EMD organisations participated in the study covering regions totalling 108,7 million inhabitants. With 88% of the 91 consulted DCs the results indicate a high percentage of T-CPR implementation in European DCs. Of these 91 centres, 42% use a tool to identify agonal breathing and in case of an assumed cardiac arrest alarm 77% instruct the caller to go and get a nearby defibrillator, and provide AED instructions.
ERC supported the survey and therefore helped to illustrate multiple and different approaches to T-CPR throughout Europe. Moreover, this project might help to examine the varying impact of different dispatch strategies as well as to evaluate the quality of T-CPR. It will strengthen the cooperation between dispatch centres and EMS and improve the quality of dispatch strategies for life support measures.