Legislative Update - May 23, 2008
State of Arizona AED Law / Regulation Changes

Arizona has amended their AED law to extend immunity protection to the untrained AED user who renders emergency care in good faith and without compensation. Arizona joins a number of other states that have passed laws aimed at encouraging greater use of AED's during medical emergencies. Entities that purchase AED's are still required to have trained responders. The bill takes affect 90 days from the end of the current session.

Good Samaritan Law

This Legal principle is based on Biblical story. It prevents a rescuer who has voluntarily helped a stranger in need from being sued for “wrongdoing.” In most of North America you have no legal obligation to help a person in need. However, since governments want to encourage people to help others, they pass Good Samaritan laws (or apply the principle to common laws). You are generally protected from liability as long as:

- You are reasonably careful
- You act in “good faith” (not for reward)
- You do not provide care beyond your skill level.

If you decide to help an ill or injured person, you must not leave them until someone with equal or more emergency training takes over, unless of course, it becomes dangerous for you to stay.

AED study shows that the device is easy to use.

February 2005, MERGINET—
Laypersons need only minimal training to
adequately perform audio-prompted cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and to
effectively use external defibrillators, according to findings of two
recent studies.

One study, in the February 2005 Emergency Medicine Journal , involved
24 laypersons, aged 19 to 52 years, whose only knowledge of CPR came
from media depictions. The laypersons performed CPR on a Laerdal Resusc®i
Anne manikin and attached Laerdal Heartstart® First Aid Automatic
External Defibrillator (AED). The 12 who performed CPR without using audio
prompts did compressions at a rate of 52 per minute. About 15 percent of
them did correct ventilations, and less than 25 percent used correct
depth and compression position. The remaining 12 subjects did CPR using
the audio prompts and did compressions at a rate of 87 per minute. About
51 percent of these ventilations were correct, but less than 20 percent
performed compressions at the correct position and depth.

When the initial no-prompt group was re-evaluated while using audio
prompts, CPR performance improved somewhat—compression rate was 91 per
minute and 47 percent of ventilations were correct. The other group showed
similar efficacy when they repeated their CPR evaluation without audio
prompts. But in both groups, only about 25 percent showed correct
positioning and depth of compressions.

The volunteers then received CPR training, according to the New Zealand
Resuscitation Council's CPR guidelines for laypeople, until they
performed compressions between 90 and 110 per minute and provided correct
ventilations and compressions 60 percent of the time. When researchers
reassessed the group's CPR skills eight weeks later, the now-trained
volunteers performed compressions at rates between 93 and 99 per minute, and
about 66 to 77 percent did ventilations correctly. And while 73 percent
of the volunteers stated they were more confident performing CPR with
the audio prompts, less than 30 percent used correct compression
position and depth even after training.

The authors suggest that significant improvements in the depth and
volume of compressions and ventilations may require future audio prompts
that give better instruction, monitor performance, and provide
correctional feedback.

A second study, in the February 2005 Critical Care, evaluated 236
first-year medical students—of whom about 12 percent were EMTs, paramedics
and nurses—on their AED performance before and after receiving 15
minutes of prespecified usage instructions using the Medtronic
Physio-Control® LIFEPAK® CR-T AED trainer during a mock cardiac arrest with the
Laerdal Resusci® Anne manikin.

The preinstruction evaluation showed a mean 81.2 second time to shock,
correct pad placement in slightly more than 85 percent, and adequate
safety in about 94 percent. After instruction, the time to shock
decreased to 56.8 seconds, almost 93 percent correctly placed the pads, and 97
percent displayed adequate safety.

The authors conclude that laypersons need only minimal background
instruction to safely and quickly use an AED. They add that all tested
volunteers in this study delivered a shock in less than one minute after
minimal AED instruction, and advocate the use of simple instructions for
public access defibrillation programs.