First responder for in-hospital resuscitation: 5-year experience with an automated external defibrillator-based program.

Background: The survival of in-hospital cardiac arrest (8-25%) has not changed substantially in the past. Until now, most hospitals in Germany had no standardized protocols available for a course of action in case of emergency, and there are no continuous registry data for in-hospital cardiac arrest and survival.

Objective: Our aim was to improve survival and receive outcomes data, so we implemented a structured hospital-wide automated first-responder system in the hospital.