First Aid classes | States should require cardiac emergency response plans in elementary

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First Aid classes States should require
cardiac emergency response plans in elementary
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Comprehensive cardiac emergency response plans
can help schools save more lives, and should be
required by state law, according to an American
Heart Association policy published in the
September issue of School Nurse. Intended for
elementary through high school personnel,
healthcare professionals, boards of education and
school safety advocates, the policy statement
provides guidance for developing, implementing
and improving the response to cardiac arrest at
schools and school-sponsored events. This
policy is focused on the school itself and
keeping the students and staff safe, said
Kathleen Rose, R.N., co-chair of the panel that
wrote the policy and consulting school nurse to
the National Association of School Nurses. During
a 30-year career as a school nurse, she has
responded to cardiac arrests in students and
visitors.
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Nearly 64 million students and staff are at
schools every day, according to the U.S.
Department of Education. An estimated 7,000
children have a cardiac arrest outside the
hospital and only 7 percent survive. A school
response plan that allows responding within a few
minutes of a cardiac arrest can greatly improve
someones chance of surviving. According to the
policy, immediate CPR can double or triple the
chances of survival, and a shock from a
defibrillator within three to five minutes may
increase survival as much as 50 percent to 70
percent. Because vigorous physical activity can
trigger cardiac arrests, A lot of states have
cardiac emergency response plans in athletics,
Rose said. However, cardiac arrests do occur in
students who arent being active, and in adults
at schools, so cardiac response plans give
everyone the opportunity for a rescue, she said.
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• Although some students have known heart
  conditions and school nurses develop individual
  school plans to keep them safe, other students
  have conditions like long QT syndrome that may go
  undiagnosed until they have a cardiac arrest,
  Rose said. Long QT is an inherited heart rhythm
  disorder that could lead to cardiac arrest.
• The policy recommends every cardiac emergency
  response plan include these minimums
• establishing a cardiac emergency response team
• placing and maintaining automated external
  defibrillators
• training response team and staff in CPR and the
  use of AEDs
• practicing the response through regular drills
• establishing a method to activate the team during
  an actual emergency
• disseminating the plan throughout the campus
• integrating the plan with local emergency medical
  services and
• reviewing and evaluating the plan to make ongoing
  improvements.

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A federal or state requirement for schools to
develop a cardiac emergency response plan will
have a huge impact on the survival rate, because
everyone will be working off the same game plan,
Rose said. However, it is also important that
states give schools the flexibility to develop
response plans based on their particular
requirements, she said. For example, larger
schools may have more than one building, so to
get an AED to a cardiac arrest victims side
within the recommended three minutes might
require the school to have multiple AEDs and
response teams, she said. An AED is a medical
device that analyzes the heart and shocks the
heart to try to reset it during cardiac arrest.
Multiple response teams may be necessary for
schools with extended before or after-school
care, she said.
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CPR and AED training and regular drills are also
recommended in the policy. When a cardiac
emergency actually happens, its not unusual for
someone to freeze until theyve done it enough
times that it becomes second nature, Rose
said. The policy statement calls for state laws,
regulations and related educational standards to
mandate the minimum plan requirements. It also
urges state appropriations to help schools pay
for the plans. Connecticut, Indiana, Michigan and
New Jersey are currently the only states that
require a cardiac emergency response plan in K-12
schools, according to the statement. There are
34 states that require CPR training for all
students as a high school graduation requirement
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Only six states require all teachers to be
CPR-trained, according to the policy statement.
Making the assumption that all teachers are
already trained is incorrect and gives a false
sense of security. It takes the district being
willing to take action to make the programs
happen without state funding, Rose said. She
suggests rallying support from parents, the PTA,
community groups and private foundations. Learn
more about First Aid classes. Bergenfield, NJ,
Jersey City, NJ, Livingston, NJ, and Queens, New
York and Gainesville, FL. Source
https//newsarchive.heart.org
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