Higher resuscitation guideline adherence in paramedics with use of real-time ventilation feedback during simulated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A randomised controlled trial

Objectives: To investigate whether real-time ventilation feedback would improve provider adherence to ventilation guidelines. Design: Non-blinded randomised controlled simulation trial. Setting: One Emergency Medical Service trust in Copenhagen. Participants: 32 ambulance crews consisting of 64 on-duty basic or advanced life support paramedics from Copenhagen Emergency Medical Service. Intervention: Participant exposure to real-time ventilation feedback during simulated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome was ventilation quality, defined as ventilation guideline-adherence to ventilation rate (8–10 bpm) and tidal volume (500−600 ml) delivered simultaneously. Results: The intervention group performed ventilations in adherence with ventilation guideline recommendations for (Interquartile range (IQR) 66.2%–82.9%) of delivered ventilations, compared to 22.1% (IQR 0%–44.0%) provided by the control group. When controlling for participant covariates, adherence to ventilation guidelines was 44.7% higher in participants receiving ventilation feedback. Analysed separately, the intervention group performed a ventilation guideline-compliant rate in 97.4% (IQR 97.1%–100%) of delivered ventilations, versus 66.7% (IQR 40.9%–77.9%) for the control group. For tidal volume compliance, the intervention group reached 77.5% (IQR 64.9%–83.8%) of ventilations within target compared to 53.4% (IQR 8.4%–66.7%) delivered by the control group. Conclusions: Real-time ventilation feedback increased guideline compliance for both ventilation rate and tidal volume (combined and as individual parameters) in a simulated OHCA setting. Real-time feedback has the potential to improve manual ventilation quality and may allow providers to avoid harmful hyperventilation.