Quality Care and Improved Survival After Cardiac Arrest

Care for cardiac arrest survivors, including the use of cardiac catheterization, targeted temperature management, and withdrawal of treatment, is highly variable. Recently, the use of targeted temperature management has come under question.

These authors retrospectively examined data from 3252 cardiac arrest survivors from 111 hospitals enrolled in the ROC-PRIMED trial from 2007–2009. Each hospital was rated according to its compliance with the following five performance measures: coronary angiography within 24 hours, initiation of targeted temperature management, achievement of targeted temperature (32°–34°C), continuation of targeted temperature management for >12 hours, and no withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment before 72 hours.

Both s…