Prehospital resuscitation and sudden cardiac death

Rates of survival horn pre‐hospital cardiac arrest are often used to judge the quality of emergency medical systems. Despite many advances in technology and pharmacotherapy over the last two decades, overall survival rates in most systems remain disappointing. Objective analysis of different systems of care and associated outcomes has been hampered by a lack of uniform data reporting. Attempts to improve survival must focus on the key to resuscitation from sudden cardiac death, that is rapid response defibrillation. 1992 Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and Australasian Society for Emergency Medicine