Application of a dual-dispatch system for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients: Will more hands save more lives?

Background: Recovery after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is difficult, and emergency medical services (EMS) systems apply various strategies to improve outcomes. Multi-dispatch is one means of providing high-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), but no definitive best-operation guidelines are available. We assessed the effects of a basic life support (BLS)-based dual-dispatch system for OHCA. Methods: This prospective observational study of 898 enrolled OHCA patients, conducted in Daegu, Korea from March 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016, involved patients > 18 years old with suspected cardiac etiology OHCA. In Daegu, EMS started a BLS-based dual-dispatch system in March 2015, for cases of cardiac arrest recognition by a dispatch center. We assessed the association between dual-dispatch and OHCA outcomes using multivariate logistic regressions. We also analyzed the effect of dual-dispatch according to the stratified on-scene time. Results: Of 898 OHCA patients (median, 69.0 years; 65.5% men), dual-dispatch was applied in 480 (53.5%) patients. There was no difference between the single-dispatch group (SDG) and the dual-dispatch group (DDG) in survival at discharge and neurological outcomes (survival discharge, P = 0.176; neurological outcomes, P = 0.345). In the case of less than 10 minutes of on-scene time, the adjusted odds ratio was 1.749 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.490-6.246) for survival discharge and 6.058 (95% CI, 1.346-27.277) for favorable neurological outcomes in the DDG compared with the SDG. Conclusion: Dual-dispatch was not associated with better OHCA outcomes for the entire study population, but showed favorable neurological outcomes when the on-scene time was less than 10 minutes.