SMS alerts in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest assessed in Swedish Örebro County Council

In Sweden, the County Councils are grouped into six healthcare regions to facilitate cooperation and to maintain a high level of advanced medical care. One of them is Örebro County Council with its Centre for Assessment of Medical Technology (CAMTÖ). This center serving the whole of Örebro County Council commissioned to promote Evidence-Based Medicine and to act as an advisory body within the County Council in matters related to Health Technology Assessment. It initiates processes to distribute the conclusions of national or regional systematic literature reviews to healthcare through the Council for Medical Knowledge Management. It produces systematic literature reviews for decision making, for example, on introducing new methods, or disposal of existing methodology. It leads to the development of HTA cooperation in the healthcare region Uppsala-Örebro.

In September 2019, CAMTÖ has released a systematic review on SMS alerts to laypersons for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) that aimed to clarify SMS efficacy on survival after OHCA.

It was concluded that only one large randomized control trial evaluating SMS alerts to non-specialists for CPR at the event of OHCA was found, which reported no statistically significant difference in survival between the groups. In other words, currently, the best available evidence does not support the use of SMS alarm to laymen as a means of improving survival after OHCA. Results from another large study investigating the effect of automated external defibrillator will soon be available.

See the full information in Swedish here.

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