Hypothermia for Heart Attack Victims

Specialties Emergency

Published

Since ACLS guidelines now recommends hypothermia for stemi patients that are unconscious with return of spontaneous circulation, then shouldn't all emergency rooms have the capability to initiate therapeutic hypothermia ?

Like many rural EDs, my ED is only 18 bed and doesn't have a hypothermic unit. That seems like bad news for anyone having a heart attack that gets transported to a rural ED.

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That's my hospital policy. We have a special cooling kit and protocol setup for spontaneous circulation.

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Specializes in Trauma Surgical ICU.

Our ED placed tons of ice packs on these pts, once in the ICU we applied the cooling system and started the protocol..

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Specializes in ED.

I'd love to get the equipment, we have to fight with PACU for our BAIR huggers.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

While it's highly preferable to use a purpose-built cooling system, there have been times where I've had more luck with wet towels and a fan in both getting a patient to temp and keeping them in range, so it is possible to do with what you have at any facility.

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

We have cooling blankets with a rectal thermometer probe. Along with that, we place tons of ice packs on the patient to help cool them down.

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Specializes in Cardiac, ER.

We use the cool guard,...but I'm in a larger level I trauma ED,...like someone else stated there is always ice bags and a temp foley!

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