Emergency dispatchers in cities across the country are eliminating mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from the instructions they give 911 callers attempting to administer CPR.

Instead, dispatchers in cities including New York, Cleveland and Chicago are instructing callers who do not know CPR to focus on giving only chest compressions to victims of cardiac arrest until rescuers arrive.

According to an article published last week in USA Today, confusion or reluctance about administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation often costs heart-attack victims precious minutes.

Centre County 911 director Dan Tancibok said his dispatchers haven't changed their procedures and continue to instruct 911 callers to perform both chest compressions and rescue breathing. Tancibok added that chest compressions combined with rescue breathing have led to several "confirmed saves" in which untrained individuals were able to successfully administer CPR and restart a victim's heart before rescuers arrived.

The change gained momentum last month when doctors from a dozen cities decided to make the change to compression-only instructions for untrained 911 callers. The switch is meant to allow untrained individuals to focus on giving chest compressions until rescuers trained in mouth-to-mouth resuscitation arrive.

Victims of cardiac arrest require immediate CPR, said Linda Van Dyke, the training coordinator for Alpha Community Ambulance Service. "Once [someone goes into] cardiac arrest, their survival rate goes down every minute. After 3 to 5 minutes, the survival rate is pretty low," Van Dyke said.

Centre County dispatchers are trained to follow American Heart Association guidelines, and their policies are reviewed by the Seven Mountains Emergency Medical Services Council, said Tim Nilson, the regional training coordinator for the council.

The council is contracted by the Pennsylvania Department of Health to advise emergency medical service providers in Centre, Mifflin, Clinton and Juniata counties on all pre-hospital emergency care. "Our medical advisory committee will most likely discuss the change at their next meeting in four to six weeks," Nilson said.

Tagni McRae, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association, said the change to eliminate rescue breathing is consistent with their recommendations. In a prepared statement, McRae said, "The simplicity of this modified technique allows untrained bystanders to rapidly intervene."

The American Heart Association is not planning on eliminating the practice of teaching mouth-to-mouth.