A Brief Report: The Role of Spiritual Care in Cardiac Arrests.

Abstract

Communication during cardiac arrest codes is inherently challenging. We designed a quality improvement project wherein chaplains responded to medical/surgical unit cardiac arrest codes.Chaplains were added to the cardiac arrest alert paging system and responded to these pages. Code alerts and chaplain responses to them were tracked. After four months, chaplains completed a survey to assess their experiences.Chaplains attended a total of 42 codes. Chaplains responded to 19 of 24 daytime working-hour codes and followed up on overnight ones, for a total of 42 code responses. They supported patients, family members or visitors, patient roommates, and medical staff. The overwhelming majority (92%) found providing spiritual care during a cardiac arrest code to be meaningful.Chaplains' presence during and after cardiac arrest codes was feasible and perceived as a useful intervention. Adding chaplains to the cardiac arrest code pager allows them to provide support to patients, their families, and staff members during these critical moments.