Where a heart is treated affects survival

NEW HAVEN, Conn., July 13 (UPI) -- Where a person is treated for a heart attack or heart failure can affect the outcome, U.S. researchers say.

Dr. Harlan M. Krumholz of the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., said researchers reviewed three years of experience -- July 2005-June 2008 -- of Medicare fee-for-service patients involving 600,000 heart attack admissions and more than 1 million heart failure admissions at nearly 5,000 hospitals nationwide.

The study, published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, found the average 30-day death rate for heart attack was 16.6 percent and the average rate of heart attack readmission was 19.9 percent. The average 30-day death rate for heart failure was 11.1 percent and 24.4 percent for readmission.

"If we just look at readmission, one in four patients who has heart failure and one in five who has a heart attack is back in the hospital within 30 days for readmission," Krumholz, who was the lead author, said in a statement.

"Variations in those rates from hospital to hospital tell yet another story. What we're seeing is that, for example, for heart attack patients, the best hospital in the country has a 30-day mortality rate of only about 11 percent and the hospital with the highest rate in the country has a rate of almost 25 percent."