The American Heart Association recently released their 2015 resuscitation guidelines. The 2015 guidelines mostly reinforce and strengthen the 2010 guidelines, and include some changes, such as the separation of the Chains of Survival to differentiate out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) from in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA). The 2010 guidelines introduced us to the C-A-B approach and to “Push hard, Push fast”. The 2015 guidelines reinforce the C-A-B approach and strengthen the focus on compressions by providing limits on compression rate and depth.

Since the release of the new guidelines, our medical educators have been busy working through the question database to identify any items that are impacted by the new guidelines. We are actively verifying our content against the new guidelines, editing questions as necessary. In fact, many of the identified items have already been edited. The new guidelines also provide us with an opportunity to create new content as well!

Recognizing the importance of having a complete understanding of the new guidelines, we are sending our educators to the AHA instructor in-service in San Diego this month. We will take another look at the database upon our return and make any additional edits as needed. Our goal is to have the process completed by January 1, 2016.