Emergency responders everywhere may soon add a plunger to their CPR repertoire. Yes, a plunger. The FDA is currently testing the ResQPump, which studies have found to be at least fifty percent more effective than traditional CPR.
The inspiration for the ResQPump originated from an act of desperation. About twenty years ago, a sixty-three-year-old father went into cardiac arrest while at home. His son administered CPR, but it was not working, and he was about to lose his father when he had an idea. He grabbed the bathroom plunger, put it over his father’s non-beating heart, and started pumping. The suction restarted his father’s heart.
The father’s cardiologist, Dr. Keith Lane, was inspired by the son’s innovation and started experimenting with the concept. Years later the ResQPump was created: a handheld device for delivering chest compressions. It looks like a mini-plunger, except in place of a long wooden handle is shorter but wider handle that you grip with both hands while doing CPR.
Thanks to some quick thinking a remarkable innovation was born that will help save many lives. Even though most of us will not develop innovations that rival the ResQPump, we will come up with ideas that make measurable contributions.
The key is to nourish those innovations in ourselves and our teams. Empower your team to examine one process in your dental practice—maybe it’s your new patient experience or how your order supplies. Have an open door policy to new ideas. What you will create is an ideal climate for triggering innovation.