Advanced Resuscitation Training (ART)

On the surface, Advanced Resuscitation Training (ART) and Basic Resuscitation Training (BART) may appear to be alternatives to the Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) and Basic Life Support (BLS) courses from the American Heart Association. However, ART is actually a resuscitation management program for hospitals, clinics, and EMS agencies rather than a specific course. A broad definition of resuscitation is used for both the inpatient and out-of-hospital environments. Inpatient ART considers a spectrum of resuscitation issues – from surveillance and monitoring of all patients through critical care, cardiopulmonary arrest and post-resuscitative care. Out-of-hospital ART includes cardiopulmonary arrest, prevention of arrest in critically ill patients, advanced procedures such as airway management and intubation, and sophisticated monitoring strategies. Finally, the training is adaptive to address the unique requirements of various providers and flexible to integrate CQI data and specific institutional needs, staffing, and workflow.

The ART program empowers health care providers by creating a “culture of resuscitation” that serves to enhance patient safety in unprecedented fashion. Unlike the existing model of life support training, the ART program recognizes the complexity of deterioration and incorporates cardiopulmonary arrest prevention. The program employs an original “Integrated Critical Care Model” to integrate multiple components of resuscitation science and defines a new paradigm for inpatient and prehospital medicine.

The ART program links CQI with training, treatment algorithms, and special projects and initiatives. At the center of the CQI process is the ART Matrix, which represents a sophisticated taxonomy to describe the various etiologies of cardiopulmonary arrest. The Matrix is hierarchical and categorizes resuscitation events into discrete boxes.

The effectiveness of ART is best reflected by the results achieved at UC San Diego Medical Center (see graph below). ART has reduced the incidence of cardiopulmonary arrest by almost 50 percent. This reduction in arrest frequency has occurred predominantly in the non-ICU environment where the current incidence of arrests is about one-quarter of baseline. These results support the IOM goals of reducing preventable arrests and fostering an environment of enhanced patient safety. For the remaining patients who suffer cardiopulmonary arrest, neurologically intact survival has more than doubled. Survival-to-discharge rates have been sustained at a level more than twice that of the benchmark established by the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines database for eight consecutive years. The ART program has resulted in a 20 percent reduction in overall hospital mortality.

As a result, ART has been designated as a Best Practices Model by the Joint Commission and recognized as a Best Patient Safety Initiative by both the National Association of Public Hospitals and the University of California Regents. Most recently, UC San Diego Health received a Quality Leadership Award from the University Health System Consortium (UHC) based on rapid improvements in overall mortality and patient safety and a top-five ranking in overall quality of care. Perhaps the most telling statistic for ART is that observed mortality at UC San Diego Health is 38 percent below expected values, leading to UC San Diego’s recognition as one of the safest hospitals in the county, state and country.

In the pre-hospital environment, ART training has resulted in similar outcomes. For patients arresting in the presence of air medical providers, survival-to-ED-admission more than doubled following training. Survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest increased 50 percent following ART training in a cohort of San Diego County EMS agencies, and survival among patients arriving to the UC San Diego Emergency Department with ongoing chest compressions rose from zero to more than 9 percent.

Since the initiation of the ART program:

• Cardiopulmonary arrest survival has doubled and is currently more than twice the national average (defined by the American Heart Association Get With The Guidelines).
• Neurologically intact arrest survival has tripled in non-ICU patients.
• The incidence of non-ICU arrests has decreased by more than 60%.
• The improved survival and decreased arrest incidence in non-ICU patients have dramatically enhanced patient safety.
• Expenditures for life support training have decreased by over 35%.

The three main components to facilitate broad implementation of the ART program include:

1) ART University

2) A Mentored Implementation program

3) Information technology resources to facilitate ART implementation and maintenance, training, and CQI.

The ART program may actually cost less than current life-support training expenditures. At UC San Diego we spent a mean of $170 per inpatient provider under the traditional resuscitation training model. The annual cost of the ART program, including leadership, CQI support, trainers, and administration, averages approximately $120 per inpatient provider. It is anticipated that each participating institution will reallocate a portion of this savings to support the ART infrastructure through a licensing fee.