Bottom Line: Emergency medical services (EMS) deliver essential initial care when patients in the community have cardiac arrest. How do patient outcomes differ between EMS agencies? This observational study suggests the odds of surviving to hospital discharge could differ more than 50 percent for any two otherwise similar patients treated by any two randomly selected EMS agencies for cardiac arrest that occurred outside a hospital. More research is needed to identify the factors that might contribute to this. This study included nearly 44,000 adults treated by 112 EMS agencies in the U.S. and Canada.
Authors: Masashi Okubo, M.D., M.S., University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and coauthors
To Learn More: The full study is available on the For The Media website.
(doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2018.3037)
Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
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Journal
JAMA Cardiology