High Rates of In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Likely to Correlate with Poor Survival

Recent research from the University of Michigan Health Systems published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that hospitals with the highest rates of cardiac arrests are more likely to have the poorest survival rates for those cases. At the same time, hospitals that are best able to prevent cardiac arrest among their patients are likely to be better at saving those patients.

The findings are in line with other data showing that higher volume is associated with better patient outcomes for health issues other than cardiac arrest.

Lead author Lena M. Chen, MD, MS, an assistant professor in internal medicine at the University of Michigan, said the results should reassure patients who are trying to find the best hospitals for the treatment of cardiac arrest. Each year, about 200,000 US patients experience cardiac arrest while hospitalized, and fewer than 20 percent of those patients survive.

The researchers could not explain why hospitals’ performance on prevention and treatment of cardiac arrest are related, but the results suggest that some hospital factors, such as nurse staffing, may affect the relationship between incidence and survival.

“The next step is to identify what’s behind the success of hospitals that have already figured out how to be winners on both fronts — prevention and treatment,” Chen said.

Abstract