Get With The Guidelines (Formerly NRCPR)

Using Data to Help Save Lives

Formerly known as the National Registry of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (NRCPR), Get With The Guidelines collects data on in-hospital resuscitation events from hospitals across the U.S. The data is used to provide participating hospitals with feedback on their resuscitation practice and patient outcomes as well as to develop new evidence-based guidelines for in-hospital resuscitation.

Improving Quality to Improve Patient Outcomes

The goal of Get With The Guidelines is to help hospital teams save more lives threatened by cardiopulmonary emergencies through consistent application of the most up-to-date scientific guidelines for in-hospital resuscitation.

Get With The Guidelines supports quality improvement at participating hospitals by:

  • Monitoring process-of-care variables and guidelines adherence to identify opportunities for improvement.
  • Identifying opportunities to improve event documentation.
  • Comparing performance to that of similar hospitals.
  • Ensuring consistent data definitions.
  • Reducing noncompliance and medical errors through data-driven peer review.
  • Reducing liability related to documentation issues.
  • Providing data to support staffing, training and equipment allocation decisions.
  • Fulfilling Joint Commission standards for monitoring in-hospital resuscitation.
  • Saving the time and money hospitals would otherwise spend to create their own data-collection systems and reporting tools.
  • Providing opportunities to contribute to evidence-based best practices for resuscitation.

American Heart Association’s acclaimed Get With The Guidelines® quality improvement suite provides access to new resources for participating hospitals, including:

  • The Web-based Patient Management Tool®, powered by Quintiles Real-World & Late Phase Research, providing expansive reporting features
  • An online toolkit, webinars, and teleconferences
  • A nationwide network of AHA Quality Improvement professionals to support program efforts
  • Knowledge-sharing with healthcare thought leaders
  • National and local recognition opportunities for high-performing hospitals

For more information on how to join Get With The Guidelines, go to http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Professional/GetWithTheGuidelines-Resuscitation/Get-With-The-Guidelines-Resuscitation_UCM_314496_SubHomePage.jsp#

For frequently asked questions on Get With The Guidelines, follow this link for more information.
http://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@private/@wcm/@hcm/@gwtg/documents/downloadable/ucm_431552.pdf 

The types of resuscitation events tracked within Get With The Guidelines are:

  • Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), events in which compressions and/or defibrillation are delivered
  • Acute respiratory compromise (ARC), events that require emergency assisted ventilation
  • Medical emergency team/rapid response team (MET)

Benefits of Get With The Guidelines

Several benefits from participating include:

  • Identify opportunities for improvement with in-hospital resuscitation practice management.
  • Reduce variance in protocol compliance so that liability is decreased.
  • Measure compliance with the latest American Heart Association resuscitation guidelines.
  • Improve staffing, training, and equipment allocation based on data, not intuition.
  • Comply with Joint Commission standards for monitoring in-hospital resuscitation.

Important information can be mined from Get With The Guidelines but not all hospitals participate in the database. For a broader view of statistics in the U.S., the following information is posted on AHA’s Heart.org website.

Cardiac Arrest Statistics

http://cpr.heart.org/AHAECC/CPRAndECC/General/UCM_477263_Cardiac-Arrest-Statistics.jsp