Midland Memorial Hospital to Implement American Heart Association's RQI Program

In the United States, more than 200,000 in-hospital cardiac arrests occur annually, with the survival rate from adult in-hospital cardiac arrest only 25 percent. With Midland County cardiac arrest rates, it’s imperative hospital staff perform effective high-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to ensure the best possible outcomes for its residents.

CPR may seem to be a basic skill for healthcare providers, but research has shown that psychomotor skills related to resuscitation can decay within just three to six months – far before the two-year standard when basic and advanced life support skills are currently evaluated.

Midland Memorial Hospital knows the importance of high-quality CPR in saving more lives. That’s why it implemented the American Heart Association’s Resuscitation Quality Improvement Program® (AHA RQI Program) to help staff maintain skill competency and achieve better patient outcomes through regular, low-dose/high-frequency, high-quality CPR training.

“For numerous years, Midland Memorial Hospital has seen the value in the American Heart Association’s Basic Life Support (BLS) training for healthcare providers,” said Bob Dent, senior vice president, COO and CNO. “Now, we’re proud to step it up a notch and be the first hospital in West Texas to adapt the new AHA RQI Program and to be among one of only about 30 hospitals in the state of Texas who are pioneering this new advancement in CPR training.”

The AHA RQI program brings the learning technology and simulation stations directly to Midland Memorial. The subscription-based training program provides the same cognitive and skills modules as a traditional CPR training program, but delivers it quarterly rather than every two years to ensure resuscitation skills remain high.

“The American Heart Association created RQI to teach healthcare providers highquality CPR in a more effective, concise and convenient way that drives them to practice and retain these skills with confidence,” said Amber Battles, American Heart Association RQI Program director. “We are so glad Midland Memorial has decided to implement RQI and make high-quality CPR a priority in order to improve patient care and help save more lives right here in the Midland community,” said Battles.

RQI is intended to improve BLS and Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support skills, while making training more convenient for healthcare providers. Students can take the cognitive components of testing online and then test their psychomotor skills with real-time feedback by performing CPR at mobile simulation stations equipped with adult and infant manikins. Stations can be placed on hospital floors, meaning healthcare providers reduce time away from their patients because they aren’t taking time off from work to learn the training and be tested in a classroom course. At each RQI Station, a tablet connects the student to training material and provides helpful audiovisual feedback for compressions and ventilations, monitors the quality of performance and provides reinforcement or suggestions for improvement.

The 2010 American Heart Association Guidelines for CPR and ECC and the 2013 CPR Quality Consensus Statement state that high-quality CPR should be recognized as the foundation for all other resuscitative efforts because it increases patient survival. The AHA RQI Program helps provide better CPR.