Quality of care matters greatly with heart attacks

On Behalf of | Nov 8, 2016 | Wrongful Death

Many things are critical when a person suffers a heart attack. One is them promptly getting the right care. The quality of care a heart attack victim gets at a hospital can have major implications on whether the heart attack proves fatal or not.

A recent study further suggests that heart attack care quality may not only have impacts on a patient’s survival likelihood in the short-term, but in the long-term as well.

The study looked at around 120,000 Medicare recipients who were heart attack patients. All these patients received heart attack treatment at a hospital sometime in the period going from 1994 to 1996. The average age of the patients was 76.

The patients were from over 1,800 U.S. hospitals. The study rated the hospitals based on how good of a job they did keeping the heart attacks patients alive in the one-month period following the heart attack. The top rating the study gave hospitals was “high-performing.”

The study looked at how the overall life expectancies of the heart attack patients varied based on the hospital they went to. It found that getting care from a “high performing” hospital was associated with having a higher overall life expectancy. The average life expectancy boost associated with such care was nine months to a year.

As this study illustrates, the quality of care a heart attack patient receives can have some major long-term ramifications. This is among the reasons why it is so essential for hospitals to act appropriately towards their heart attack patients. Mistakes in heart attack care could have tragic consequences, either in the short or the long term.

Individuals with a loved one who lost their life to a heart attack who suspect that the care their loved one received was negligent and that the death was preventable may want to talk with a skilled attorney about whether they should be considering a wrongful death claim.

Source: UPI, “Post-heart attack survival may depend on choice of hospital,” Dennis Thompson, Oct. 6, 2016

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