Survival after cardiac arrest and changing task profile of the cardiac arrest team in a tertiary care center.

Background: The characteristics of in-hospital emergency response systems, survival rates, and variables associated with survival after in-hospital cardiac arrest vary significantly among medical centers worldwide. Aiming to optimize in-hospital emergency response, we performed an analysis of survival after in-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the task profile of our cardiac arrest team.

Methods: In-hospital emergencies handled by the cardiac arrest team in the years 2004 to 2006 were analyzed retrospectively, and patient and event characteristics were tested for their associations with survival after cardiopulmonary resuscitation.