Striking Disparities in ER Evaluation of Chest-Pain - CME Teaching Brief - MedPage Today
MILWAUKEE, Feb. 2 -- When patients with chest pain arrive at the emergency department, they may get profiled, before decisions are made on care, by race, female gender, and insurance coverage, found a national study by researchers here.
Action Points
* Explain to interested patients that although this study contributes to the growing literature on disparities in the provision of cardiac care, the study could not determine the clinical outcome of the disparities, or the cause or appropriateness of these differences.
A retrospective study of 7,068 patients, corresponding to more than 32 million such visits annually, found differences in who gets ECGs and x-rays as well as cardiac rhythm and oxygen saturation monitoring using pulse oximetry, said a study published in the February issue of Academic Emergency Medicine.
Posted by gruwell at February 5, 2007 11:30 AM | TrackBack