Variations in survival after cardiac arrest among academic medical center-affiliated hospitals

Variation exists in cardiac arrest (CA) survival among institutions. We sought to determine institutional-level characteristics of academic medical centers (AMCs) associated with CA survival.

We examined discharge data from AMCs participating with Vizient clinical database-resource manager. We identified cases using ICD-9 diagnosis code 427.5 (CA) or procedure code 99.60 (CPR). We estimated hospital-specific risk-standardized survival rates (RSSRs) using mixed effects logistic regression, adjusting for individual mortality risk. Institutional and community characteristics of AMCs with higher than average survival were compared with those with lower survival.

We analyzed data on 3,686,296 discharges in 2012, of which 33,700 (0.91%) included a CA diagnosis. Overall survival was 42.3% (95% CI 41.8-42.9) with median institutional RSSR of 42.6% (IQR 35.7-51.0; Min-Max 19.4-101.6). We identified 28 AMCs with above average survival (median RSSR 61.8%) and 20 AMCs with below average survival (median RSSR 26.8%). Compared to AMCs with below average survival, those with high CA survival had higher CA volume (median 262 vs.119 discharges, p = 0.002), total beds (722 vs. 452, p = 0.02), and annual surgical volume (24,939 vs. 13,109, p<0.001), more likely to offer cardiac catheterization (100% vs. 72%, p = 0.007) or cardiac surgery (93% vs. 61%, p = 0.02) and cared for catchment areas with higher household income ($61,922 vs. $49,104, p = 0.004) and lower poverty rates (14.6% vs. 17.3%, p = 0.03).

Using discharge data from Vizient, we showed AMCs with higher CA and surgical case volume, cardiac catheterization and cardiac surgery facilities, and catchment areas with higher socioeconomic status had higher risk-standardized CA survival.