Prehospital transportation to therapeutic hypothermia centers and survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest

Table 1 Characteristics of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients treated at therapeutic hypothermia (TH) centers versus other hospitals

Variable^b	Patients treated at TH centers	Patients treated at other hospitals
Variable^b	(N = 2,363)	(N = 2,479)
Survival to discharge with normal neurological status	11.9 %	8.2 %^a
30-day survival with normal neurological status	7.4 %	3.4 %^a
Year
2009	33.6 %	48.4 %^a
2010	66.4 %	51.6 %
Witnessed arrest	60.0 %	55.0 %^a
Bystander CPR	6.5 %	7.6 %
Defibrillation by EMS	52.3 %	46.1 %^a
Shockable rhythm^c	9.2 %	8.7 %
EMS response time (dispatch to arrival on-scene)
Less than 4 minutes	16.8 %	14.4 %^a
4-8 minutes	41.6 %	36.0 %
More than 8 minutes	41.6 %	49.6 %
EMS time on scene
Less than 4 minutes	1.7 %	1.3 %
4-8 minutes	6.1 %	7.1 %
More than 8 minutes	92.3 %	91.7 %
EMS transport time (departure from scene to hospital arrival)
Less than 4 minutes	22.5 %	20.9 %
4-8 minutes	32.6 %	34.9 %
More than 8 minutes	44.9 %	44.2 %
Female sex	37.2 %	36.4 %
Age in years
Less than 50	15.5 %	17.5 %^a
50-65	28.1 %	29.9 %
66-80	30.0 %	30.3 %
81 and above	26.5 %	22.3 %
Race/ethnicity
White	67.6 %	65.4 %
Black	17.3 %	18.4 %
Hispanic	6.4 %	7.8 %
Asian/Pacific Islander	2.9 %	2.6 %
Other non-white	5.8 %	5.8 %
Expected primary payer
Medicare	55.3 %	52.6 %
Medicaid	3.3 %	4.4 %
Private	25.0 %	25.5 %
Self-pay/uninsured	13.9 %	15.5 %
Other	2.5 %	2.1 %
Number of hospital beds
Less than 200	19.6 %	46.1 %^a
200-399	49.8 %	42.4 %
400 and above	30.6 %	11.5 %
Teaching hospital	14.8 %	7.6 %^a
Poverty rate in hospital service area	6.6 %	7.1 %^a

^aDifference between patients at therapeutic hypothermia (TH) centers and other hospitals is statistically significant at the 1 % level. All other differences are not statistically significant at the 5 % level
^bDifferences between patients at TH centers versus other hospitals were tested using Chi-square tests except for poverty rate in hospital service area where a t test was used
^cShockable rhythm was identified as ventricular fibrillation (VF), ventricular tachycardia (VT), or unknown AED shockable rhythm. Non-shockable rhythms were asystole and pulseless electrical activity

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