2015 American Heart Association Guidelines Update for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care
Publication of the 2015 American Heart Association (AHA) Guidelines Update for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC) marks 49 years since the first CPR guidelines were published in 1966 by an Ad Hoc Committee on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation established by the National Academy of Sciences of the National Research Council.1 Since that time, periodic revisions to the Guidelines have been published by the AHA in 1974,2 1980,3 1986,4 1992,5 2000,6 2005,7 2010,8 and now 2015. The 2010 AHA Guidelines for CPR and ECC provided a comprehensive review of evidence-based recommendations for resuscitation, ECC, and first aid. The 2015 AHA Guidelines Update for CPR and ECC focuses on topics with significant new science or ongoing controversy, and so serves as an update to the 2010 AHA Guidelines for CPR and ECC rather than a complete revision of the Guidelines.
The purpose of this Executive Summary is to provide an overview of the new or revised recommendations contained in the 2015 Guidelines Update. This document does not contain extensive reference citations; the reader is referred to Parts 3 through 9 for more detailed review of the scientific evidence and the recommendations on which they are based.
