New device helps with CPR

Starla Pointer/News-Register##Brandon Harris, emergency room director at Willamette Valley Medical Center, assembles the new Lukas Stryker CPR device. The battery-operated machine automatically compresses a patient’s chest to keep the heart beating. Hospital officials said it is consistent and won’t tire out, like a human can.

A new tool, already in use on McMinnville Fire District ambulances, will help Willamette Valley Medical Center continue CPR while also addressing other needs of cardiac arrest patients.

Called a Stryker LUKAS chest compression system, the battery-operated device straps around a person’s upper body and rhythmically pushes on the chest to maintain blood flow to the brain.

The device replicates what humans do when they deliver chest compressions, Emergency Room Director Brandon Harris said, but it never gets tired and always delivers exactly the right force needed.

“It’s another set of hands when resources are tight in a critical situation,” said Harris, noting how personnel from other areas of the hospital often are called to the ER during busy periods.

Without the machine, a team of trained staff rotate every two minutes delivering CPR so they can rest between shifts. “It’s tiring” and stressful to administer chest compressions for long periods, he said, so having three people take turns allows maximum effectiveness.

With the machine, those three can join other personnel in administering medication, setting up a defibrillator or other actions to save the patient’s life, Harris said.

The autonomous machine also makes it possible to continue CPR while moving or transporting a patient, he said. Otherwise, it might be difficult for a human to apply compressions while a patient is being carried upstairs or from one room to another.

WVMC emergency room personnel have seen the machine in use when McMinnville Fire Department ambulances arrived with CPR in progress.

Now that the hospital has its own tool, the same type of CPR can continue for as long as the patient needs it, Harris said.

The Stryker LUCAS compression system arrived in late October. ER staff and other hospital medical personnel have been trained last week in using the Lucas device on a dummy.

The machine comes in a backpack-size container. It is made of two pieces that clip together: a stiff backboard piece that goes under the body and a structure that stands above the chest, with an arm that pushes down.

Harris said it automatically adjusts to the right amount of pressure and rhythm and can continue as long as needed.

“It’s consistent and perfect,” added Cyndi Leinassar, a representative of the hospital.