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Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC) Cardiac Epidemiologic Registry (Cardiac Epistry) Versions 1 and 2 (ROC-Cardiac Epistry 1 and 2-BioLINCC)

Data Access NOTE: Please refer to the “Authorized Access” section below for information about how access to the data from this accession differs from many other dbGaP accessions.

Available Data: The ROC Cardiac Epistry versions 1 and 2 include all cardiac arrest cases entered into the ROC database from December 1, 2005 to April 1, 2011. ROC Cardiac Epistry 3 includes cardiac arrest cases captured between 2011 and 2015, and introduced significant changes in how and which data were collected.

For ROC traumatic injury Epistry data, please see: ROC-Trauma Epistry

Objectives: To build a prospective population-based registry of participants with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest responded to by Emergency Medical Services (EMS). Specific aims:

Background: Cardiac arrest is a common, serious, debilitating and costly public health problem. Although there has been a steady decline in morbidity and mortality from most cardiovascular diseases, high mortality rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests continue to pose a challenge for healthcare providers and a significant public health burden. The Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC) was established in 2004 to conduct clinical research in the areas of cardiopulmonary arrest and life-threatening traumatic injury with the overall goal of improving resuscitation outcomes. Participant and care characteristics can predict favorable outcomes in cardiac arrests, but there is still a wide variation in outcomes that is not well understood. EMS factors such as service level, number of responding providers, use of procedures or drugs in the field, training, quality assurance/feedback, and response time intervals also vary significantly by region. Variations in geographic, socioeconomic and periodic factors may also be associated with differences in outcomes.

Prior to ROC Cardiac Epistry, there were no North American population-based registries for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. Therefore there was a need for standardized data collection of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in diverse geographic locations in order to identify the independent effects of prognostic or treatment factors accounting for variations in survival.

Participants: The registry included 109,326 cardiac arrest events from 264 EMS agencies transporting to 287 acute care hospitals from the following regional centers: Birmingham, Alabama; Dallas, Texas; Iowa City, Iowa; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Portland, Oregon; San Diego, California; Seattle/King County, Washington; Ottawa, Ontario; Toronto, Ontario; and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Design: ROC Epistry collected standardized data regarding episode-specific factors, participant demographics, clinical information, pre-hospital interventions and disposition, hospital information, and participant outcome for all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the ROC regions. Each ROC site had to ensure capture of all eligible cases within the EMS service areas. Out-of-hospital data were extracted from existing databases whenever possible and augmented with targeted review of EMS reports. Hospital data were abstracted directly from the hospital file in most cases. Alternative methods included linkage to death registries and obituaries if the death occurred within 30 days. Sites submitted data using a web-based interface or batch uploads. Participants were not contacted directly.