Care Does Not Stop Following ROSC: A Quality Improvement Approach to Postcardiac Arrest Care

Abstract

Introduction: Pediatric cardiac arrests carry significant morbidity and mortality. With increasing rates of return of spontaneous circulation, it is vital to optimize recovery conditions to decrease morbidity. Methods: We evaluated all patients who presented to a large quaternary pediatric intensive care unit with return of spontaneous circulation. We compared patient-specific postcardiac arrest care preimplementation and postimplementation of a standardized postcardiac arrest resuscitation pathway. We implemented evidence-based best practices using the Translating Research into Practice framework and Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles. Our primary aim was to increase the percent of postcardiac arrest care events meeting guideline targets for blood pressure and temperature within the first 12 hours by 50% within 18 months. Results: Eighty-one events occurred in the preintervention group (August 1, 2016-April 30, 2018) and 64 in the postintervention group (May 1, 2018-December 1, 2019). The percent of postcardiac arrest events meeting guideline targets for the entirety of their postarrest period improved from 10.9% for goal mean arterial blood pressure to 26.3%, P = 0.03, and increased from 23.4% for temperature to 71.9%, P < 0.0001. Conclusions: Implementing a postcardiac arrest standardized care plan improved adherence to evidence-based postcardiac arrest care metrics, specifically preventing hypotension and hyperthermia. Future multicenter research is needed to link guideline adherence to patient outcomes.