Dr. Johnson to help lead national cardiac arrest research

University of Washington Department of Emergency Medicine professor Dr. Nicholas Johnson is helping lead a new national effort to improve survival and recovery after cardiac arrest.

The American Heart Association recently selected the VICTORY-CART collaborative as one of only two U.S. teams in its new Cardiac Arrest Research Team (CART) Network, a four-year, $3.4 million initiative focused on advancing evidence-based care for patients after cardiac arrest. Johnson serves as a co-investigator on the collaborative alongside researchers from Montefiore Health System, Columbia University, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Each year, more than 600,000 people in the United States experience cardiac arrest, yet many questions remain about the best approaches to improve outcomes. Through the CART Network, investigators will study post-cardiac arrest blood pressure management and build a learning health system designed to rapidly translate new evidence into clinical practice.

UW Department of Emergency Medicine clinical instructor Dr. Matthew Neth, who also serves as core faculty at Oregon Health & Science University, is a member of the network's second research collaborative studying defibrillation strategies for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

Read the full American Heart Association announcement.