Resuscitation Quality Improvement: Improving Clinicians' Performance.

Background: Although cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) renewal occurs every 2 years, quality of performed CPR at the study site was below American Heart Association (AHA) standards. Resuscitation Quality Improvement (RQI) is a new AHA program with the premise that practicing CPR more frequently using audiovisual feedback can improve performance.

Objective: To identify whether performance of chest compressions during training reassessments improves with RQI.

Methods: This study used a preintervention-postintervention design. Critical care nurses from 2 intensive care units performed a baseline round of chest compressions. These baseline data reflected CPR performance with traditional training. The next week, participants completed RQI training. Two weeks after RQI training, participants performed chest compressions. Five weeks after RQI training, participants performed a third round of chest compressions. The compressions performed 2 and 5 weeks after RQI used audiovisual feedback.

Results: Thirty nurses participated. Before intervention, the mean (SD) for overall compression compliance was 32.68% (26.96%), depth was 67.76% (30.15%), and rate was 39.95% (27.41%). The first postintervention (RQI plus 2 weeks) mean (SD) increased to 75.33% (33.70%) for overall compression compliance, 97.43% (12.04%) for depth, and 80.89% (29.35%) for rate. The second postintervention (RQI plus 5 weeks) mean (SD) decreased slightly to 73.16% (36.36%) for overall compression compliance, 96.57% (13.04%) for depth, and 78.75% (31.83%) for rate.

Conclusion: Frequent CPR using RQI technology, with its immediate audiovisual feedback, helps maintain skills, which may improve patient outcomes.