Background Although many hospitals have resuscitation champions, it is unknown if hospitals with very active physician or nonphysician champions have higher survival rates for in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA). Methods and Results We surveyed adult hospitals in Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation about resuscitation practices, including about their resuscitation champion. Hospitals were categorized as having a very active physician champion, a very active nonphysician champion, or other (no champion or not very active champion). For each hospital, we calculated risk-standardized survival rates for IHCA during the period of 2016 to 2018 and categorized them into quintiles of risk-standardized survival rates. The association between a hospital's resuscitation champion type and their quintile of survival was evaluated using multivariable hierarchical proportional odds logistic regression. Overall, 192 hospitals (total of 44 477 IHCAs) comprised the study cohort. Risk-standardized survival rates for IHCA varied widely between hospitals (median: 24.7%; range: 9.2%-37.5%). Very active physician champions were present in 29 (15.1%) hospitals, 64 (33.3%) had very active nonphysician champions, and 99 (51.6%) did not have a very active champion. Compared with sites without a very active resuscitation champion, hospitals with a very active physician champion were 4 times more likely to be in a higher survival quintile, even after adjusting for resuscitation practices across hospital groups (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 3.90; 95% CI, 1.39-10.95). In contrast, there was no difference in survival between sites without very active champions and those with very active non-physician champions (adjusted OR, 1.28; 95% CI, 0.62-2.65). Conclusions The background and engagement level of a resuscitation champion is a critical factor in a hospital's survival outcomes for IHCA.
Keywords: cardiac arrest; outcomes; survival.