Acute cardiac care & resuscitationCohort study
Correlation Between Emergency Medical Service (EMS) Agency Rates of Survival to Hospital Admission and Hospital Survival Outcomes for Cardiac Arrest
- Retrospective cohort study
- registry-based (Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES))
- EMS agency-level risk-standardized rates
- weighted linear regression
Authors' conclusion
EMS agency rates of survival to hospital admission are strongly correlated with their rates of survival to hospital discharge and favorable neurological survival.
Study context
- Population
- Adults with nontraumatic OHCA, CARES registry, EMS agenciesevents, 1838 EMS agencies
- Participants
- 544,296 adults
- Exposure
- Pre-COVID vs Post-COVID
- Pre-COVIDn = 252,137
- Post-COVIDn = 292,159
- Outcome
- Correlation between EMS agency rates of survival to admission and survival to discharge and favorable neurological survival
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Correlation of survival to admission with discharge outcomes
| Group | Survival to discharge, weighted r | Favorable neurological survival, weighted r |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-COVID | 0.68 (95% CI, 0.64-0.72) | 0.54 (95% CI, 0.43-0.59) |
| Post-COVID | 0.63 (95% CI, 0.59-0.66) | 0.48 (95% CI, 0.44-0.53) |
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Effect modification by neighborhood racial and ethnic composition
- Composition modified the correlation in both periods, but correlations remained strong in each neighborhood group
- all interactions <0.05
Effect modification by neighborhood income
- Similar findings for interactions by neighborhood income strata
Original publication
Correlation Between EMS Agency Rates of Survival to Hospital Admission and Hospital Survival Outcomes for Cardiac Arrest. Circulation. Published 1 September 2026. doi:10.1161/circulationaha.126.079735
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it