Authors (including presenting author) :
Liu KL , Shum HP , Chan KM , Dun YW , Pun KL , Siu YC , Lau CW
Affiliation :
for the AED Taskforce under HKEC Q&S Office
Introduction :
Early defibrillation is one of the most important elements in the Chain of Survival. The location of the Automatic External Defibrillation (AED) will affect the time to first defibrillation. However, the accessibility of AED in Hong Kong is limited and some can only be accessed via security staff or customer service personnel.
Objectives :
To assess the accessibility of the AED installed within patient accessible area of HA hospitals and clinic within Hong Kong East Cluster (HKEC) and provide recommendation on installation or modification of AED.
Methodology :
The team members visited 14 sites and 47 AED storage locations within the HKEC from 21 Nov to 29 Nov 2018. The AED setup, location, accessibility and coverage area were recorded. Clinical floors with defibrillator installed were excluded. As defibrillation should be delivered within critical 3 minutes after patient collapse, thus a 1.5 minutes quick walking distance (which cover ~100m level ground with or without staircase) was taken as the limit to determine the coverage radius. Priority for installation of public access AED was scored (0 -100: low to high priority)
Result & Outcome :
PYNEH, RH, TSKH, TWEH, CCH, WCHH, SJH and all general out-patient clinics within HKEC were visited. All installed AED were inspected. All AED were functional except two, which were under repair. Based on the needs and readiness for installation of AED, we recommended high priority (priority score >=70) of installing public access AED at 6 locations and medium priority (priority score >=50) & <70) at 7 locations. Four AEDs were suggested to be relocated to improve their accessibility. In addition, advice on use of standard AED signage, inclusion of adaptive instructions guide within AED box and post-up of AED location map were recommended as appropriate. Conclusion: Additional public access AEDs installation and modification are recommended to provide better AED coverage within HKEC.
Co-location with:
