General practice and cardiac arrest community first response in Ireland.

Background: In Ireland, the MERIT 3 scheme enables doctors to volunteer as cardiac arrest community first responders and receive text message alerts from emergency medical services (EMS) to facilitate early care.

Aim: To establish the sustainability, systems and clinical outcomes of a novel, general practice based, cardiac arrest first response initiative over a four-year period.

Methods: Data on alerts, responses, incidents and outcomes were gathered prospectively using EMS control data, incident data reported by responders and corroborative data from the national Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Registry.

GPs who volunteer to be first responders for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A qualitative study.

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is a major cause of premature mortality. Survival is possible when timely cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation are available in the community. GPs are well placed to provide early OHCA care and significantly increased rates of survival are achieved when GPs participate in resuscitation.

Ten years of cardiac arrest resuscitation in Irish general practice.

Aim: The aim of this study is to establish the role and outcome of general practitioner (GP) involvement in out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) resuscitation in the Republic of Ireland.

Methods: A ten year prospective observational study involving a cohort of Irish general practices.

Setting: 521 general practice settings distributed throughout the Republic of Ireland, representing approximately one quarter of all practices and a third of Irish GPs.

Cardiac arrest in Irish general practice: an observational study from 426 general practices.

Setting: Sudden Cardiac Death accounts for approximately 5000 deaths in Ireland each year. Nationally, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest has a very low resuscitation rate, reported at less than 5%. Ireland has a well developed general practice network which routinely manages emergencies arising in the community setting.