Highlights from the 2015 American Heart Association CPR and ECC guidelines
The newest round of the 2015 American Heart Association (AHA) Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Emergency Cardiac Care (ECC) contains 315 recommendations.1 It is easy to be overwhelmed by this massive (275 pages) document so this post will distill what you need to know in the emergency department. This update marks the end of a 5-year revision cycle for the AHA and the shift to a continuously updated model. Current and future guidelines can now be found at ECCGuidelines.heart.org. This round lacks any of the major foundational changes seen in 2010; however, we do say goodbye to some recommendations (bye bye vasopressin).
Given all the recent brouhaha around propofol and Michael Jackson, I thought I would review the 2007 Annals of EM Clinical Practice Advisory paper on the use of propofol in the Emergency Department for procedural sedation. This is one of the 2009 Lifelong Learning Self-Assessment (LLSA) articles. Each year EM-board certified physicians are tested on 20 pre-selected LLSA articles to maintain eligibility for re-certification.