Recommended guidelines for uniform reporting of data on out-of-hospital cardiac arrests: the "Utstein style".

R esuscitation has become an important multidisciplinary branch of medicine, demanding a spectrum of skills and attracting a plethora of specialties and organizations, each of which claims a legitimate interest in the science and practice of resuscitation. This complex background has hindered the development of a uniform pattern or set of definitions for reporting results. Different systems cannot readily be compared or contrasted because data are rarely compatible. Representatives from the American Heart Association, the European Resuscitation Council, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the Australian Resuscitation Council recently met to establish uniform terms and definitions for out-of-hospital resuscitation. The American Heart Association has supported resuscitation activities since 1977. The European Resuscitation Council was formed in August 1989 as a multidisciplinary group of representatives from the