Illinois Heart Rescue

Illinois Heart Rescue (ILHR) seeks to increase out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) survival rates in the State of Illinois by at least 100%. To accomplish this goal, we have partnered with the Illinois Department of Public Health and existing state-wide quality improvement systems (Get with the Guidelines Stroke, Mission Lifeline) to recruit and train Emergency Medical Services (EMS) systems and hospitals in Illinois to collect quality cardiac arrest data into the CARES database that encourages improvement in local systems of care for sudden cardiac arrest. Our focus is to reduce health disparities in cardiac arrest outcomes using hot spotting to identify and intervene in communities with the highest incidence of cardiac arrest and poorest outcomes.

Since 2013, ILHR has trained over 24,300 community members on Hands Only CPR and AED use through establishing strong partnerships via diverse trainings at schools, hospitals, health associations, cultural centers, and major league sporting events, primarily in identified “hotspot”neighborhoods that have been documented to have the highest incidence of OHCA and the lowest incidence of bystander CPR. ILHR training efforts have resulted in bystander CPR rates in Chicago increasing from 13% in 2013 to 24% in 2015. In this time, Illinois has doubled its survival rate from 4% to 8%.