CARES Annual Report 2017 | 9 The Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES) In 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) established the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES) in collaboration with the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine. CARES was developed to help communities determine standard outcome measures for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), by linking the three sources of information that define the continuum of emergency cardiac care: 911 dispatch centers, emergency medical services (EMS) providers, and receiving hospitals. Participating EMS systems can compare their performance to de-identified aggregate statistics, allowing for longitudinal benchmarking capability at the local, regional, and national level. CARES began data collection in Atlanta, with nearly 1,500 cases captured in 2006. At present, the registry now captures that same number of records weekly. The program has expanded to include 23 state-based registries (Alaska, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, and Washington) and the District of Columbia, with more than 60 community sites in 19 additional states. CARES represents a catchment area of almost 115 million people or approximately one- third of the US population. To date, the registry has captured over 350,000 records, with more than 1,400 EMS agencies and over 1,900 hospitals participating nationwide. Figure 1. Map of 2018 CARES participants.