b'CARES Annual Report 2020 | 13Data elements collected from receiving hospitals includetraining from CARES staff on the data elements, data emergency department outcome, provision ofcollection process, and features of the CARES website. therapeutic hypothermia/TTM, hospital outcome,This training includes a one-on-one session with a CARES discharge location, and neurological outcome atProgram or State Coordinator prior to being granted discharge (using the Cerebral Performance Categoriesaccess to the software. EMS and hospital users are also [CPC] Scale). Receiving facilities may also completeprovided with numerous resources, including a detailed optional elements outlining hospital procedures,CARES data dictionary and a CARES user guide. Once a including coronary angiography, CABG, and stent or ICDcommunity has been participating in the registry for an placement.extended period of time, CARES provides ongoing The CARES dataset is geocoded on an annual basis andsupport in the form of answering questions as needed, linked to a number of census-tract level variablesproviding updated training documents, and responding including: median household income, median age,to individual reporting requests. race/ethnicity, unemployment rate, poverty status,Software Logic and Auditing urbanicity, and educational attainment.In order to provide consistent data validation across the Reporting Capability registry, each CARES record is reviewed for completeness and accuracy through an automated audit The CARES software includes functionality to automatealgorithm. Once the record is processed by the data analysis for participating EMS agencies. The reportsalgorithm, data entry errors are flagged for review by include 911 response intervals, delivery rates of criticalEMS and hospital users (as appropriate) and CARES staff. interventions (i.e. bystander CPR, dispatcher CPR, publicLogic and error messages are also incorporated into the access defibrillation [PAD]), and community rates ofdata-entry form to minimize the number of incomplete survival using the Utstein template. An EMS agency hasfields and implausible answer choices during the data continuous access to their data and can generateentry process. Finally, aggregate data is analyzed on a reports by date range at their convenience. Theregular basis to identify agency-specific anomalies. software is also capable of aggregate reporting suchCARES staff utilize site-by-site comparison tools to that CARES staff can generate custom reports fordetect outliers and compare each agencys data with the benchmarking and surveillance purposes. In addition,national average.hospitals have access to facility-specific reports,Case Ascertainmentallowing users to view pre-hospital and in-hospital characteristics of their patient population withEach EMS agency is asked to confirm their non-benchmarking capability. A robust query feature alsotraumatic call volume to ensure capture of all arrests in allows agencies and hospitals to create customizeda defined geographic area. The volume of OHCA per searches of their data. These search results can be easilymonth is compared with historic monthly volumes by exported to Microsoft Excel for further analysis.CARES staff; when a substantial drop in the number of events occurs, the EMS contact is notified to determine Data Validationif the variation was real or the result of a lag in the data-The CARES quality assurance process is one of theentry process. In addition, CARES conducts a bi-annual strengths of the registry, as a number of measures areassessment of population coverage and case taken to ensure the integrity and accuracy of the data.ascertainment. CARES staff and State Coordinators These measures include standardized training of allprovide each EMS agencys geographic coverage, census CARES users, built-in software logic, an audit algorithmpopulation, and start date via a standardized template. ensuring consistent data validation across the registry,This information is then linked with record volume to and a bi-annual assessment of population coverage andidentify outliers across the entire registry. In the event case ascertainment.that an outlier is found, CARES staff or the State Coordinator works closely with the EMS agency to Training, Education, and Support identify any issues in the data collection process and Training, education, and ongoing technical andresolve as needed.operations support are key components of CARES that contribute to the registrys success and enhance the experience for participating sites. During the enrollment process, EMS and hospital users receive extensive'