Abstract 165: Hospital Variation in Time to Administration of Epinephrine After Cardiac Arrest With Initial Non-shockable Rhythm

Abstract

Background: For patients with in-hospital cardiac arrests due to non-shockable rhythms, delays in epinephrine administration beyond 5 minutes is associated with worse survival. However, the extent of hospital variation in delayed epinephrine administration and its impact on hospital-level outcomes is unknown. Methods: Within Get with the Guidelines-Resuscitation, we identified 103,932 adult patients (>18 years) at 548 hospitals with an in-hospital cardiac arrest due to a non-shockable rhythm who received at least 1 dose of epinephrine between 2000 to 2014. We constructed two-level hierarchical regression models to quantify hospital variation in rates of delayed epinephrine administration (>5 minutes) and its association with hospital rates of survival to discharge. Results: Among the 548 hospitals, there was substantial variation in rates of delayed epinephrine administration (median 13.5%, range: 0%- 53.8%). The odds of delay in epinephrine administration were 61% higher at one randomly selected hospital compared to a similar patient at another randomly selected hospitals (median odds ratio [OR] 1.61; 95% C.I. 1.54 - 1.67). After adjusting for patient characteristics, the median risk-standardized survival rate for non-shockable in-hospital cardiac arrests was 12.1% and varied significantly across hospitals (range: 5.2% to 30.9%). There was an inverse correlation between a hospital’s rate of delayed epinephrine administration and its risk-standardized survival rate for cardiac arrests due to non-shockable rhythm (ρ= -0.23, P<0.0001). Compared to hospitals in the best quartile, risk-standardized survival was 17.4% lower at hospitals in the worst quartile of delayed epinephrine administration (13.8% vs. 11.4%, P<0.0001, Figure). Conclusions: Although delays in epinephrine administration following in-hospital cardiac arrest are common, there is substantial hospital variation in rates of delayed epinephrine administration. Hospitals with high rates of delayed epinephrine administration were found to have lower rates of risk-adjusted survival. Further studies are needed to determine if improving hospital performance on time to epinephrine administration, especially at hospitals with poor performance on this metric will lead to improvement in outcomes.