By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
Years and even decades after doctors agreed on lifesaving standard therapies for heart attacks, pneumonia and congestive heart failure, disturbingly large numbers of patients aren't receiving them, according to two papers in today's New England Journal of Medicine.
Reviewing data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on 10 indicators for quality of care at 3,558 hospitals in the first half of 2004, researchers at Harvard School of Public Health found that simple, universally accepted treatments were not provided for:
•11% of heart attack patients.
•19% of patients with congestive heart failure.
•29% of pneumonia patients.
Treatment can be as simple as giving a heart attack patient an aspirin, something only 92% of hospitals do for all appropriate patients, says Ashish Jha of the Harvard School of Public Health and lead author of one of the papers.
But despite authoritative, universal agreement that those measures should happen quickly and be given to all patients, a surprising number didn't receive them.
Read more...USA Today
Posted by gruwell at July 22, 2005 9:35 AM | TrackBack