IJCS | Volume 31, Nº4, July / August 2018

343 Figure 2 - Location of the regional hospitals that can perform angioplasty in the state of Sergipe. Legend: Regional public hospitals without angioplasty service Public hospital with angioplasty service Private hospital with angioplasty service Oliveira et al VICTIM Registry Int J Cardiovasc Sci. 2018;31(4)339-358 Original Article Patients meeting the eligibility criteria described will be included in this study. The following patients will be excluded: (1) those who die before the interview; (2) patients who develop STEMI inside the hospital, whose pre-hospital phase cannot be characterized; (3) those who refuse to provide written informed consent; (4) those whose acute event of STEMI is characterized as reinfarction (new AMI within 30 days from the incident infarction); (5) individuals whose diagnosis is changed, that is, their initial diagnostic suspicion of STEMI is not confirmed during hospitalization; (6) patients cared for by use of their health insurance at a philanthropic hospital (Figure 3). Data collection The teamof field researchers is subdivided so that there is a fixed schedule with a researcher on duty every day of the week at the hospitals participating in the study. This ensures an active search is performed everyday for patients with STEMI admitted to the four hospitals of the study. After the patients provide written informed consent, data are collected as follows: (1) from their medical records with extraction of data pertinent to the study; (2) from an interview with the patients. The interview collected the following demographic variables: age; socioeconomic level; educational level; marital status; pathological history; and time-related elements, such as the date and hour of symptomonset, the time that help was required, the time the patient arrived at the first institution that could not perform angioplasty, and the time the patient arrived at the specialized institution. From the medical records, the following data are retrieved: characteristics of the diagnostic ECG with ST-segment elevation, physical examination and laboratory tests, drugs used within 24 hours from STEMI detection, tests performed on admission, such as echocardiography and coronary angiography, data regarding the angioplasty or revascularization surgery, in addition to data regarding the in-hospital outcomes. Fortnightly meetings with the team are systematically held to assess the progress of the investigation and occasional adjudication of doubtful cases, in addition to assessing the quality of data collection. To obtain the data regarding the outcomes of patients included in the registry, a phone call with structured