Advanced Guidelines for Resuscitation Practice for Patients with Cardiac Arrest after Open-Heart Surgery: Roles of Nurses

Abstract

Cardiac arrest after open-heart surgery is a complication more commonly found than cardiac arrest in any other situations. This is because open-heart surgery requires the use of a heart-lung machine as a functional replacement of the heart during the operation. The process of using the heart-lung machine can contribute to the patient’s electrolyte imbalance, abnormal coagulopathy, active bleeding after cardiac surgery, and cardiac tamponade, all of which can cause cardiac arrest. On the other hand, prompt treatment can lead to positive prognosis of a cardiac arrest event. The ‘Advanced Guidelines for Resuscitation Practice for Patients with Cardiac Arrest after Open-heart Surgery’ can lead to shorter time spent on saving lives and reduce complications. The main objectives of this article are to present a review of literature pertaining to open-heart surgery, to propose the ‘Advanced Guidelines for Resuscitation Practice
for Patients with Cardiac Arrest after Open-heart Surgery’, and to discuss the roles of nurses in resuscitating open-heart surgery patients in pre-, peri-, and post-cardiac-arrest stages following an open-heart surgery situation. Critical care nurses play an important part in the assessment of risk and the prevention of reversible causes of cardiac arrest from the stage before the cardiac arrest. As members of a caregiving team, nurses assist the patients during a cardiac arrest event, according to their assigned roles. Other roles of nurses include coordination, medical equipment management, monitoring of the patient’s post-resuscitation circulatory system to shorten resuscitation time, minimising resuscitation-related complications, and maximising the patient’s chance of survival.