---
title: O.C.G.A. § 31-11-130. Legislative findings.
collection: code
id: 31-11-130
cite_as: O.C.G.A. § 31-11-130 (2025)
canonical_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/31-11-130
md_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/31-11-130.md
text_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/31-11-130/text
source_url: https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/document/docs/default-source/joint-features-document-library/t31-(v23)-2025-pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=da7ded69_0#page=745
date: 2025
status: active
corpus_version: 2025-supplement-89aa39ab3c68
license: CC0-1.0
publisher: Georgia Commons, an independent project of Georgia Civic Data. Not the State of Georgia. Not legal advice.
up: https://georgiacommons.org/code/31-11.md
previous: https://georgiacommons.org/code/31-11-119.md
next: https://georgiacommons.org/code/31-11-131.md
index: https://georgiacommons.org/code/index.md
version: the only printed version
in_force: true
current_through: Including Acts of the 2025 Session of the General Assembly of Georgia
heading_path: HEALTH / EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES / EMERGENCY CARDIAC CARE CENTERS
---

# O.C.G.A. § 31-11-130. Legislative findings.

The General Assembly finds and declares that:

(1) Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the United States and in Georgia;

(2) Georgia ranks as the thirty-eighth worst in the nation for numbers of deaths from cardiovascular disease;

(3) There were 79,901 deaths in Georgia in 2015, and cardiovascular disease (excluding stroke) accounted for 23.6 percent of such deaths;

(4) Approximately 40 percent of cardiac deaths occur suddenly, the result of a heart attack that is manifested by an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest;

(5) As of 2016, several states, but notably Arizona and Washington, have designated hospitals that are expert in cardiovascular disease care, much in the way that Georgia has stroke and trauma centers; Arizona and Washington have some of the lowest death rates for patients who have heart attacks, in part due to their designated cardiac centers; and

(6) Therefore, it is in the best interest of the residents of this state to establish a program to identify emergency cardiac care centers throughout the state to ensure the rapid triage, assessment, treatment, and transport of patients experiencing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest or heart attack or its complications.

## History

Code 1981, § 31-11-130, enacted by Ga. L. 2017, p. 302, § 1/SB 102.