Collegiate EMS and Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

This is a project to collect data on campus based EMS (CBEMS) response to out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. This project has two main goals: 1) assess the feasibility of establishing a CBEMS call registry similar to other national databanks and 2) determine outcomes of cardiac arrest on our nation’s campuses, focusing primarily on return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) prior to patient transfer to a medical provider of equal or higher level of training.

Cardiac arrest was chosen as the pilot project because of the relative ease of measuring defined outcomes in this patient population. Much of the EMS outcomes literature focusses on this patient population. Furthermore, in terms of assessing feasibility, cardiac arrests occur with limited frequency on most campuses and entering data on these patients should be less taxing on our constituent groups.

The data entry form below is designed to be filled out once for each patient being entered. The form consists of 30 data points per patient, however, does not ask for any specific patient or agency identifiers (HIPAA compliant). Agencies are asked to categorize their campus type and population in an effort to help draw comparisons and conclusions on the data, but specific squad names are not requested. After filling out all of the data points click 'Submit' and reenter the form to log additional patients.

Please enter data on all cardiac arrests on campus from September 1, 2008 to present - we are asking that squads enter data on patients as far back as four years, but also encourage squads to enter data immediately after calls for patients encountered this semester. To identify patients we recommend querying your records for all cardiac arrest dispatches as well as unresponsive subjects and unknown medical emergencies to help identify all arrest victims. If CPR was in progress or an AED applied to the patient, count the patient and please enter the data.

Of note, this initial project is being conducted exclusively for internal quality assurance and improvement purposes. IRB approval has not been obtained although it may eventually be sought in order to retrospectively analyze and publish findings. Additionally, if this pilot collection of call data is successful, the desire over time is to collect a wider range of national campus EMS call information that can then be utilized by members for further research initiatives.

Thank you for your participation!

Questions related to this project - please email: alumni@ncemsf.org