Here is an interesting study that is mostly about cardiovascular disease, and how it is treated in various types of institutions in the California emergency hospital markets.
I think it tells us a lot about what we have to do "after" some one has a heart attack. We continue to need to treat cardiovascular disease, and that will continue for some time. However, if we start treating the population for cardiovascular disease before catastrophic occurrences (read... costly), the outcomes would be still better.
When will we start to drive our acceptable cultural norms to include exercise, no smoking (NYC has just legislated that no one can smoke in public areas, including parks, sidewalks and so on), healthy eating and so on. The billions of dollars spent on critical care for CV disease and rehab from Heart Attacks, Strokes, Arterial Aneurysms and so on, could be saved; and recycled into other less preventable diseases.
Here is the report from "Healthcare Business News"...
Read more: Higher spending, fewer patient deaths, USC and Harvard researchers find - Modern Physician http://www.modernphysician.com/article/20110204/MODERNPHYSICIAN/302049997/1205#ixzz1D5fWfnAU
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Higher spending, fewer patient deaths, USC and Harvard researchers find
Posted: February 4, 2011 - 2:30 pm ET
Higher spending appeared to lead to lower hospital mortality rates for patients with any of six common conditions, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The authors warned, though, that the "findings should be interpreted with caution" because it's unknown which costly interventions led to the positive results.
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Studying a database of more than 2.5 million patient discharge records for 208 California hospitals between 1999 and 2008, researchers with the University of Southern California and Harvard Medical School found that hospitals that spent more on treatment of heart attacks, congestive heart failure, acute strokes, gastrointestinal bleeding, hip fractures and pneumonia had lower mortality rates for those conditions.
In fact, the authors calculated that heart-attack deaths would have increased by 1,831 if the patients had been admitted to the lowest-spending rather than the highest-spending hospitals.
The RAND Corp.- and National Institute on Aging-funded study contradicts recent reports showing that regions that spend more on healthcare have poorer outcomes than those who spend less, but the researchers said the results could have been skewed by "unmeasured confounders."
In fact, the authors calculated that heart-attack deaths would have increased by 1,831 if the patients had been admitted to the lowest-spending rather than the highest-spending hospitals.
The RAND Corp.- and National Institute on Aging-funded study contradicts recent reports showing that regions that spend more on healthcare have poorer outcomes than those who spend less, but the researchers said the results could have been skewed by "unmeasured confounders."
Read more: Higher spending, fewer patient deaths, USC and Harvard researchers find - Modern Physician http://www.modernphysician.com/article/20110204/MODERNPHYSICIAN/302049997/1205#ixzz1D5fWfnAU
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