Incidence of treated cardiac arrest in hospitalized patients in the United States

• Published in: Critical care medicine Vol. 39; no. 11; pp. 2401 - 2406
• Main Authors: Merchant, Raina M, Yang, Lin, Becker, Lance B, Berg, Robert A, Nadkarni, Vinay, Nichol, Graham, Carr, Brendan G, Mitra, Nandita, Bradley, Steven M, Abella, Benjamin S, Groeneveld, Peter W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hagerstown, MD by the Society of Critical Care Medicine and Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 01-11-2011; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
• Subjects: Anesthesia. Intensive care medicine. Transfusions. Cell therapy and gene therapy; Biological and medical sciences; Data Collection; Emergency and intensive cardiocirculatory care. Cardiogenic shock. Coronary intensive care; Heart Arrest - epidemiology; Hospital Administration - statistics & numerical data; Hospitals - classification; Hospitals - statistics & numerical data; Humans; Incidence; Intensive care medicine; Medical sciences; Regression Analysis; Residence Characteristics; Socioeconomic Factors; Time Factors; United States; United States; North America; America; Cardiocirculatory arrest; Intensive care; cardiopulmonary resuscitation; Treatment; Cardiovascular disease; heart arrest; Resuscitation; Incidence
• ISSN: 0090-3493; 1530-0293
• DOI: 10.1097/CCM.0b013e3182257459

OBJECTIVE:The incidence and incidence over time of cardiac arrest in hospitalized patients is unknown. We sought to estimate the event rate and temporal trends of adult inhospital cardiac arrest treated with a resuscitation response.
DESIGN:Three approaches were used to estimate the inhospital cardiac arrest event rate. First approachcalculate the inhospital cardiac arrest event rate at hospitals (n = 433) in the Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation registry, years 2003–2007, and multiply this by U.S. annual bed days. Second approachuse the Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation inhospital cardiac arrest event rate to develop a regression model (including hospital demographic, geographic, and organizational factors), and use the model coefficients to calculate predicted event rates for acute care hospitals (n = 5445) responding to the American Hospital Association survey. Third approachclassify acute care hospitals into groups based on academic, urban, and bed size characteristics, and determine the average event rate for Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation hospitals in each group, and use weighted averages to calculate the national inhospital cardiac arrest rate. Annual event rates were calculated to estimate temporal trends.
SETTING:Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation registry.
PATIENTS:Adult inhospital cardiac arrest with a resuscitation response.
MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS:The mean adult treated inhospital cardiac arrest event rate at Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation hospitals was 0.92/1000 bed days (interquartile range 0.58 to 1.2/1000). In hospitals (n = 150) contributing data for all years of the study period, the event rate increased from 2003 to 2007. With 2.09 million annual U.S. bed days, we estimated 192,000 inhospital cardiac arrests throughout the United States annually. Based on the regression model, extrapolating Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation hospitals to hospitals participating in the American Hospital Association survey projected 211,000 annual inhospital cardiac arrests. Using weighted averages projected 209,000 annual U.S. inhospital cardiac arrests.
CONCLUSIONS:There are approximately 200,000 treated cardiac arrests among U.S. hospitalized patients annually, and this rate may be increasing. This is important for understanding the burden of inhospital cardiac arrest and developing strategies to improve care for hospitalized patients.