Novel pathway for sudden cardiac death prevention

Sudden cardiac death is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, accounting for an estimate 350,000 deaths each year. The US Congress passed a resolution in late September 2008 designating October as "National Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month." In an effort to raise awareness for preventing unnecessary deaths because of sudden cardiac death, the resolution "calls upon the people of the United States to observe this month with appropriate programs and activities." The response from our institute was to develop a novel pathway named ESCAPE-which is an evidence-based novel pathway for low Ejection fraction and Sudden Cardiac death Awareness and Prevention Eligibility. The main objective of this program is to demonstrate that implementing a simple novel pathway for primary prevention of sudden cardiac arrest leads to an increase in the number of patients with low ejection fraction (