In medical emergencies involving out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs), bystanders reasonably but sometimes incorrectly expect a call to 911 will result in a dispatcher guiding the caller through the steps of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). For the public safety answering points (PSAPs) providing dispatcher-assisted telephone-CPR (tCPR), data was collected in an attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of tCPR and its role in patient survival. Three PSAPs, one emergency medical service (EMS) department, and sixteen fire departments from...

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In medical emergencies involving out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs), bystanders reasonably, but sometimes incorrectly, expect that a call to 911 will result in a dispatcher guiding the caller through the steps of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The primary objective of this research is to investigate the role of the dispatcher and dispatcher-assisted telephone-CPR (TCPR) in survival rates of OHCAs. This naturally led to an evaluation of the data collection practices of public safety answering points (PSAPs), emergency medical service (EMS) and fire departments, and hospitals for...

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