The Royal Prince Alfred (RPA) cardiac arrest response teams cover the entire campus, bringing additional life-saving equipment to patients, staff and visitors. RPA’s existing emergency trolleys do not have steering or brakes, making them difficult to take to arrests outside of the main buildings and manoeuvre on difficult terrain. With the upcoming redevelopment of RPA, there is the for potential an increase in the type of calls—potentially more industrial in nature—that may occur at RPA, increasing the need for the emergency trolleys to have capacity to brake, to be steered and the ability to be taken off-road.
At the end of 2022, three onsite cardiac arrests occurred involving two staff members and one inpatient, resulting in the transfer of the patients with a LUCAS device to the emergency department (ED) for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) CPR. The LUCAS device is a mechanical device that provides high quality consistent CPR and is used as a bridge to ECMO. Once the LUCAS is called for at an arrest call, a staff member from intensive care unit (ICU) or ED have to bring the LUCAS to the arrest call, meaning that further resources are required to leave their area to assist with equipment. If the LUCAS was taken with the emergency equipment, further staffing resources would not be required to leave their department.
The Pitch
Staff members met to discuss the equipment that is taken to arrest calls and what could be done to ensure an improved transition to the LUCAS device as well as a swift transfer of the patient. The emergency trolleys and arrival of the LUCAS with the emergency equipment was decided as the best solution to improve upon, to ensure an expedited response to cardiac arrests that occur within the RPA campus.
The project was presented at the ‘Pitch It’ event, as part of the 2023 Sydney Research and Innovation Symposium. We requested funds to build three purpose-built trolleys that have breaks, that can be steered and have the space to carry all necessary equipment. We collaborated with Biomedical Engineering to design the trolleys and so that they can hold a LUCAS device.
In addition to the new trolleys, education would be provided to all arrest responders within RPA regarding LUCAS application and escalation to ECPR. This would enhance the response time and implementation of life-saving measures to safely treat, intervene and transfer the patient experiencing a cardiac arrest. Our pitch was successful, and we received $60, 420 to have the three emergency trolleys built and two new LUCAS devices purchased. We are currently having a prototype of the trolley built, which will be trialled and tested out before finalising the design.
