Defibrillators

As it currently stands, in Australia, aged care facilities such as retirement villages and nursing homes are not legally obliged to install defibrillators on-premises, but with an ageing population¹ and a trend towards more care services in retirement villiages², have you examined whether it should be best practice for you?

Each year, more than 30,000 Australians suffer cardiac arrest. If it happens outside a hospital, their chances of surviving are less than 1 in 103. In the United States, more than 350,000 cardiac arrests occur outside of a hospital setting every year⁴. Should cardiac arrest occur, death can result quickly if proper steps aren’t taken immediately? When CPR and an AED are used in the first few minutes after a cardiac arrest, the chances of survival are the greatest⁵. NSW Health’s 2012 study into the Epidemiology of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests6 found that 59% of patients were deceased by the time they were examined by an ambulance team, and most ambulance attendances occurred:

in residential areas
outside of business hours
among persons ages 65 years and over

So while it may not yet be legislated, it may be a great time to consider whether your establishment and its patients, staff and residents could benefit from an on-site defibrillator.

1 3101.0 - Australian Demographic Statistics, (Jun 2019) https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/1CD2B1952AFC5E7ACA257298000F2E76
2 Defibrillators – what are your obligations? (Dec 2019) http://www.retirementliving.org.au/news/defibrillators-obligations/
3 Defibrillators - HealthDirect (Dec 2018) https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/defibrillators
4 About Cardiac Arrest, (Mar 2017) https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/cardiac-arrest/about-cardiac-arrest
5 Cardiac Arrest - Heart Foundation Australia https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/your-heart/heart-conditions/cardiac-arrest
6 Do A, Cretikos M, Muscatello D, Rose N. Epidemiology of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, NSW, 2012: Time, place and person. Sydney: Centre for Epidemiology and Evidence, NSW Ministry of Health, 2013.

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