Safe at Home: CPR ''Anytime'' Training

In recent years, Packard Children’s has discharged an increasing number of high-risk patients, a function of the rising medical acuity of children that the Hospital treats. Kids who have undergone heart surgery and organ transplants, as well as neonatology patients born with cardiac conditions, still endure a considerable risk of suffering respiratory or cardiopulmonary arrest even after they’ve left the Hospital. 

Thanks to a grant from Packard’s Innovations in Patient Care program, pediatric life support educator Lynda Knight, RN, is piloting CPR Anytime for Family & Friends, a novel learning program for families of these high-risk patients. In a unique ''watch and do'' technique, users practice on a personal mannequin while watching the skills being taught and performed on a DVD developed by the American Heart Association. The core skills are taught in just 22 minutes, and studies indicate that program participants learn CPR as well, if not better, than those who undertake the traditional three-hour course. 

Knight recognized that the manner in which CPR was taught at Packard was ill-defined, with parents of high-risk children receiving inconsistent bedside training before discharge. It was also unclear whether parents actually retained the information and were empowered to resuscitate their child at home if necessary. Knight’s research calls for providing the packaged CPR Anytime kit to 100 parents of high-risk children at discharge. Her team will follow up with participants to determine to what degree parents have learned and retain the training, and also will investigate whether the kit is disseminated to other family and community members, increasing the number of individuals with the lifesaving skills. 

Knight is excited about the newly focused effort to provide families with high-quality CPR training. ''This method assures that teaching at discharge is standardized and reproducible,'' she says. ''We’re empowering parents of high-risk patients with the core skills of CPR, and increasing their confidence to provide effective resuscitation at home--should the need ever arise.''