TX-CARES
Improving survival of patients who experience a cardiac arrest in communities across the state of Texas
The Texas-Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (Texas-CARES) Program – a partnership of 9-1-1 centers, EMS agencies and municipal fire departments, hospitals and other healthcare providers, university researchers, and the public – engages all links in the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) chain of survival and promotes a comprehensive, standardized system of OHCA care throughout the state.
Texas-CARES helps produce measurable improvements in survival of cardiac arrest patients by working with communities and health care providers to implement evidence-based practices, such as those found in the CPR LifeLinks national initiative. The Texas-CARES Program uses the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES) to measure and report important cardiac arrest epidemiology, treatment parameters, and outcomes.
Publications
McGovern Medicine – TEXAS C.A.R.E.S. improves outcomes:
The Department of Emergency Medicine has been actively working since 2019 on the Texas-Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (TX-CARES) to improve patient outcomes after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Before 2019, Texas lacked a statewide OHCA registry. The registry facilitates quality improvement in OHCA care by allowing EMS agencies and hospitals to track patient data, event characteristics, and treatment parameters. The TX-CARES registry has been instrumental in identifying disparities in prehospital and hospital OHCA care and outcomes. In 2022, TX-CARES expanded, adding 11 EMS agencies and covering approximately half of Texas’s population. Notably, the program’s impact was demonstrated in May 2023 when a participant in the program suffered an OHCA but was successfully resuscitated, highlighting the effectiveness of the TX-CARES communities. The program aims to ensure high-quality cardiac resuscitation responses and improved survival rates for OHCA across all Texas communities. In November 2022, TX-CARES organized an Out-of-Hospital Best Care Practices Symposium, contributing to the program’s success in saving lives from cardiac arrest. The Department of Emergency Medicine emphasizes the importance of support and advocacy in sustaining TX-CARES, acknowledging McGovern Medical School’s crucial role in this public health effort.
How Texas CARESFunding and Collaborators:
