Korean Cardiac Arrest Research Consortium

The Korean Cardiac Arrest Research Consortium (KoCARC) is a collaborative research network developed to comprehend various researches conducted in the field of out-of-cardiac arrest resuscitation and to strengthen the cooperative effort in conducting studies. It was organized in 2014 with recruitment of hospitals willing to participate voluntarily to the consortium.

Not only for emergency medicine, but KoCARC is expanding the research collaboration with cardiology, preventive medicine and epidemiology as well. To enhance the professionalism and effectiveness in research, seven research committees, which consists of Epidemiology and Preventive Research Committee (EPR), Community Resuscitation Research Committee (CRR), EMS Resuscitation Research Committee (ERR), Hospital Resuscitation Research Committee (HRR), Hypothermia and Post-resuscitation Care Research Committee (HPR), Cardiac Care Resuscitation Committee (CCR) and Pediatric Resuscitation Research Committee (PRR). Also Data Safety and Monitoring Board Committee (DSMB) is organized to provide annual review and Security and Ethics Committee to oversight security and ethical issues in research. Monthly meeting of interdisciplinary steering committee, consists of the consortium chair, steering committee chair, each research committee chair and secretary committee, is held to approve the proposed research agendas and to mediate between multi-center trial participating hospitals.

KoCARC registry is a data collecting system composed of OHCA risk and prognostic variables developed to provide the platform to researches conducted in KoCARC.

Inclusion criteria

• OHCA patients who were transported to participating emergency department (ED) by emergency medical service with resuscitation efforts and whose arrest was identified as a presumed cardiac etiology by emergency physicians in ED.

Exclusion criteria

• OHCA with terminal illness documented by medical record, under hospice care, with pregnancy, with pre-documented 'Do Not Resuscitate' card
• OHCA of definite non-cardiac etiology, including trauma, drowning, poisoning, burn, asphyxia, or hanging