Health Care Utilization Prior To Out-of-hospital Cardiac Arrest

 Despite recent improvements in resuscitation care, out-of-hospital cardiac arrests remain a major public health issue.  These tragic occurrences are not infrequent, and there are more than 150,000 cases in the United States each year. Unfortunately, fewer than one in 10 patients survives the event.a

Cardiac arrest is traditionally regarded as a sudden event that is difficult to predict and that occurs without warning. Dr. Mony Shuvy, of the Hadassah Heart Institute recently evaluated patterns of health-care utilization prior to out of hospital cardiac arrest, using a cohort of almost 39,000 victims of cardiac arrest from Ontario, Canada. He recently published a study with unexpected findings:  many future victims of cardiac arrest are symptomatic or seek medical attention in the days to weeks prior to the event.a

In this study 30% of future victims were seen in the emergency room and 70% were seen by primary care physicians. Dr. Shuvy described a broad range of symptoms that led individuals to turn to the medical system. The majority of emergency visits were due to non-cardiac complaints.a

In summary, this study determined that a substantial proportion of patients who suffered a cardiac arrest turned health services within 90 days of the event. Further analyses may enable the development of big data strategies to identify and evaluate patients at risk, and possibly prevent these unfortunate events.a