Quality of care for sudden cardiac arrest: Proposed steps to improve the translation of evidence into practice

Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is the most common cause of death in the United States. Despite national guidelines, patients at risk for SCA often fail to receive evidence-based therapies. Racial and ethnic minorities and women are at particularly high risk for undertreatment. To address the persistent challenges in improving the quality of care for SCA, the Duke Center for the Prevention of Sudden Cardiac Death at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (Durham, NC) reconvened the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Thought Leadership Alliance. Experts from clinical cardiology, cardiac electrophysiology, health policy and economics, the US Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, and device and pharmaceutical manufacturers discussed the development of SCA educational tools for patients and providers, mechanisms of implementing successful tools to help providers identify patients in their practice at risk for SCA, disparities in SCA prevention, and performance measures related to SCA care. This article summarizes the discussions held at this meeting.