• Susanna T Walker, Stephen J Brett, Anthony McKay, Rajesh Aggarwal, and Charles Vincent.
• Clinical Safety Research Unit, Department of Surgery & Cancer, Imperial College London, 10th Floor QEQM Building, St Mary's Hospital, Praed Street, London W2 1NY, UK. susanna.walker@imperial.ac.uk
• Resuscitation. 2012 Nov 1;83(11):1374-80.

Background And AimInadequately designed equipment has been implicated in poor efficiency and critical incidents associated with resuscitation. A novel resuscitation trolley (Resus:Station) was designed and evaluated for impact on team efficiency, user opinion, and teamwork, compared with the standard trolley, in simulated cardiac arrest scenarios.MethodsFifteen experienced cardiac arrest teams were recruited (45 participants). Teams performed recorded resuscitation simulations using new and conventional trolleys, with order of use randomised. After each simulation, efficiency ("time to drugs", un-locatable equipment, unnecessary drawer opening) and team performance (OSCAR) were assessed from the video recordings and participants were asked to complete questionnaires scoring various aspects of the trolley on a Likert scale.ResultsTime to locate the drugs was significantly faster (p=0.001) when using the Resus:Station (mean 5.19s (SD 3.34)) than when using the standard trolley (26.81s (SD16.05)). There were no reports of missing equipment when using the Resus:Station. However, during four of the fifteen study sessions using the standard trolley participants were unable to find equipment, with an average of 6.75 unnecessary drawer openings per simulation. User feedback results clearly indicated a highly significant preference for the newly designed Resus:Station for all aspects. Teams performed equally well for all dimensions of team performance using both trolleys, despite it being their first exposure to the Resus:Station.ConclusionWe conclude that in this simulated environment, the new design of trolley is safe to use, and has the potential to improve efficiency at a resuscitation attempt.Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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