Singapore’s Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) Data – 2011 to 2018

The latest data for Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA), released by Health Ministry’s Unit for Pre-hospital Emergency Care (UPEC) shows that incidence of OHCA has jumped from 1,377 cases in 2011 to 2,972 cases in 2018. This is due to the rapidly ageing population and a rise in chronic diseases in Singapore, such as diabetes, hypertension and underlying heart conditions.

However, the bystander CPR rate has also increased significantly from 22% in 2011 to 61.8% in 2018.

The improvement in bystander CPR rates is mainly attributed to the dispatcher-assisted CPR programme introduced in 2012, where someone who calls 995 when witnessing a cardiac arrest, is guided by a medical dispatcher over the phone to perform CPR on the patient.

Singapore has done well and we are saving more lives each year than ever before. However, more can still be done to match the survival rates in the best cities in the world.

Let’s continue to DARE to save a life! #daretosaveaheart