Cardiac arrest in the intensive care unit: An assessment of preventability

Cardiac arrest in the intensive care unit (ICU-CA) is a common and highly morbid event. We investigated the preventability of ICU-CAs and identified targets for future intervention.

This was a prospective, observational study of ICU-CAs at a tertiary care center in the United States. For each arrest, the clinical team was surveyed regarding arrest preventability. An expert, multi-disciplinary team of physicians and nurses also reviewed each arrest. Arrests were scored 0 (not at all preventable) to 5 (completely preventable). Arrests were considered 'unlikely but potentially preventable' or 'potentially preventable' if at least 50% of reviewers assigned a score of ≥1 or ≥3 respectively. Themes of preventability were assessed for each arrest.

43 patients experienced an ICU-CA and were included. A total of 14 (32.6%) and 13 (30.2%) arrests were identified as unlikely but potentially preventable by the expert panel and survey respondents respectively, and an additional 11 (25.6%) and 10 (23.3%) arrests were identified as potentially preventable. Timing of response to clinical deterioration, missed/incorrect diagnosis, timing of acidemia correction, timing of escalation to a more senior clinician, and timing of intubation were the most commonly cited contributors to potential preventability. Additional themes identified included the administration of anxiolytics/narcotics for agitation later identified to be due to clinical deterioration and misalignment between team and patient/family perceptions of prognosis and goals-of-care.

ICU-CAs may have preventable elements. Themes of preventability were identified and addressing these themes through data-driven quality improvement initiatives could potentially reduce CA incidence in critically-ill patients.