Call 911 and initiate CPR or Call 911 and wait?

[Myleene]

This question has every nurse in the office thinking about it. Hopefully, I will be able to provide them answer after this.

Presently with the home care agency, we are not required to have CPR certification (FYI that will soon change)

But in the mean time if the CPR certification is expired and you are a licensed RN or LPN in the home are you covered via the Good Samaritan Act to initiate CPR should a crisis occur? Should the Nurse provide CPR or not knowing it is expired? So is it call 911 and initiate CPR? or Call 911 and wait for help?

One states no with the general fact in mind that if hospital facilities do not allow Professionals to provide CPR unless they are CPR certified then the same should go in the home.

The other states yes because we are obligated under the nursing practice.

Which is it? Can anyone recall this in their nursing and the law courses?

Thanks,

Please e-mail responses to

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[BethD]

to the best of my knowledge the new policy of the american heart Assoc. is to call 911 then start CPR with adults,

but to start in children then call (children often have arrested due to lack of O2 ie chocking drowneding and can often being breathing on their own with very little intervention.)

personally I keep my CPR upto date but it lapsing wouldn't stop me from doing CPR.

BethRN

[MollyJ]

Ditto to previous poster. CPR is a certification not licensure and failing to institute regardless of the state of your certification will get you into much more medicolegal doo-doo than doing it with "lapsed" certification. The fact is, CPR is the standard of care for the person in cardiac arrest and you want to provide the standard of care (barring a no code order).