When hospitals have better 30-day mortality rates for heart attack patients, they also boast better long-term survival rates than low-performing hospitals, according to a study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.
Researchers analyzed data from the Cooperative Cardiovascular Project, a study of Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction that includes 17 years of follow-up data. The researchers compared the life expectancy rates in patients admitted to hospitals with low and high 30-day risk-standardized mortality rates.
Using a sample of more than 119,000 patients across more than 1,800 hospitals, the researchers found patients admitted to hospitals with the lowest 30-day risk-standardized mortality rate lived an average of 6.44 years after their heart attack. Those admitted to hospitals with the highest 30-day risk-standardized mortality rates lived for an average of 5.54 years after their heart attack.
All total, for every 1,000 patients treated in a lower-performing hospital, 1,124 years of life were lost compared to patients treated in higher-performing hospitals, a meaningful loss in life expectancy for patients.