News & Events

Cooling Technology Helps Patients After Cardiac Arrest

Cardiac arrest is a term that describes what happens when the heart stops pumping blood through the body. Unfortunately, the death rate is high among patients who suffer sudden cardiac arrest outside of a hospital. Fifty percent of patients don’t survive to hospital admission, and over 80 percent don’t make it to discharge.

Of those who survive, many are left with serious neurologic problems. It is felt that this is due to lack of oxygen to the brain — something known as reperfusion injury — during cardiac arrest.

North Memorial uses a technique called induced hypothermia, controlled cooling of the body’s core temperature, to limit reperfusion injury. Induced hypothermia can be performed by several methods such as a cooling blanket, ice packs and internal cooling through chilled intravenous (IV) fluid. At North Memorial, we use an IV device called CoolGard® to internally cool a patient’s blood to 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) for 24 to 48 hours.

Our Induced Hypothermia Program is used for in- and out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and is a cooperative effort involving the Emergency Department, Cardiology and our Critical Care specialists. Since 2006, we have used induced hypothermia for 114 cardiac arrest patients. Forty-one out of these 114 patients have survived and returned to normal lives. This represents a survival rate of just over 35 percent, a significant increase from the national survival rate of less than 8 percent only four years ago.

Cooling is most effective if it’s started as soon as possible after cardiac arrest. Therefore, we have recently expanded our program to include cooling technology in many of our ambulances and helicopters for post-cardiac-arrest patients who are transported to the Twin Cities from communities in greater Minnesota and Wisconsin.

North Memorial is proud to be ranked #1 in Minnesota, and among the top in the nation, for overall cardiac care by HealthGrades®, the leading health care ratings provider. Learn more at northmemorial.com/healthgrades.