The "2010 American Heart Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care" increased the focus on methods to ensure that high-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is performed in all resuscitation attempts. There are 5 critical components of high-quality CPR: minimize interruptions in chest compressions, provide compressions of adequate rate and depth, avoid leaning between compressions, and avoid excessive ventilation. Although it is clear that high-quality CPR is the primary component in influencing survival from cardiac arrest, there is considerable variation in monitoring, implementation, and quality improvement. As such, CPR quality varies widely between systems and locations. Victims often do not receive high-quality CPR because of provider ambiguity in prioritization of resuscitative efforts during an arrest. This ambiguity also impedes the development of optimal systems of care to increase survival from cardiac arrest. This consensus statement addresses the following key areas of CPR quality for the trained rescuer: metrics of CPR performance; monitoring, feedback, and integration of the patient’s response to CPR; team-level logistics to ensure performance of high-quality CPR; and continuous quality improvement on provider, team, and systems levels. Clear definitions of metrics and methods to consistently deliver and improve the quality of CPR will narrow the gap between resuscitation science and the victims, both in and out of the hospital, and lay the foundation for further improvements in the future.

Delivery of high-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation increases survival from cardiac arrest, yet studies have shown that cardiopulmonary resuscitation quality is often poor during actual in-hospital resuscitation. Furthermore, recent work has shown that audiovisual feedback alone during cardiopulmonary resuscitation modestly improves performance. We hypothesized that a multimodal training method comprising audiovisual feedback and immediate debriefing would improve cardiopulmonary resuscitation performance among care providers. Prospective randomized interventional study. Simulated cardiac arrests at an academic medical center. A total of 80 nurses were randomized to two groups. Each group underwent three trials of simulated cardiac arrest. The "feedback" group received real-time audiovisual feedback during the second and third trials, whereas the "debriefing-only" group performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation without feedback. Both groups received short individual debriefing after the second trial. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation quality was recorded using a cardiopulmonary resuscitation-sensing defibrillator that measures chest compression rate/depth and can deliver audiovisual feedback messages from both groups during the three trials. An adequate compression rate was defined as 90-110 compressions/min and an adequate depth as 38-51 mm. In the debriefing-only group, the percentage of participants providing compressions of adequate depth increased after debriefing, from 38% to 68% (p = 0.015). In the feedback group, depth compliance improved from 19% to 58% (p = 0.002). Compression rate did not improve significantly with either intervention alone. The combination of feedback and debriefing improved compression rate compliance from 45% to 84% (p = 0.001) and resulted in a doubling of participants providing compressions of both adequate rate and depth, 29% vs. 64% (p = 0.005). Significant cardiopulmonary resuscitation quality deficits exist among healthcare providers. Debriefing or feedback alone improved cardiopulmonary resuscitation quality, but the combination led to marked performance improvements. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation feedback and debriefing may serve as a powerful tool to improve rescuer training and care for cardiac arrest patients.

Background: Bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation ( CPR ) is associated with increased survival from cardiac arrest, yet bystander CPR rates are low in many communities. The overall prevalence of CPR training in the United States and associated individual‐level disparities are unknown. We sought to measure the national prevalence of CPR training and hypothesized that older age and lower socioeconomic status would be independently associated with a lower likelihood of CPR training. Methods and Results: We administered a cross‐sectional telephone survey to a nationally representative adult sample. We assessed the demographics of individuals trained in CPR within 2 years (currently trained) and those who had been trained in CPR at some point in time (ever trained). The association of CPR training and demographic variables were tested using survey weighted logistic regression. Between September 2015 and November 2015, 9022 individuals completed the survey; 18% reported being currently trained in CPR , and 65% reported training at some point previously. For each year of increased age, the likelihood of being currently CPR trained or ever trained decreased (currently trained: odds ratio, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.97–0.99; P <0.01; ever trained: OR , 0.99; 95% CI , 0.98–0.99; P =0.04). Furthermore, there was a greater then 4‐fold difference in odds of being currently CPR trained from the 30–39 to 70–79 year old age groups (95% CI , 0.10–0.23). Factors associated with a lower likelihood of CPR training were lesser educational attainment and lower household income ( P <0.01 for each of these variables). Conclusions: A minority of respondents reported current training in CPR . Older age, lesser education, and lower income were associated with reduced likelihood of CPR training. These findings illustrate important gaps in US CPR education and suggest the need to develop tailored CPR training efforts to address this variability.