death rates

Thanks to improved treatments, including more-frequent angioplasties and effective drug use, the number of hospitalized heart attack victims who die or experience severe heart failure has dropped almost in half over the last six years. This is the conclusion drawn by an international group of researchers, who looked at heart attack care in 14 countries. The study, which is being published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that compared with six years ago, …

New research presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists suggests that the majority of U.S. diabetics--a full three out of five--experience at least one major, costly complication, including heart disease, stroke, eye damage, chronic kidney disease or foot amputation. The research, which analyzed data gathered by the National Center for Health Statistics between 1999 and 2004, also found that one in 10 diabetics has two complications, one in …

U.S. healthcare quality isn't what it should be, and probably won't be for at least three to five years. That's the depressing--or arguably, challenging--conclusion emerging from a new study by consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. To conduct its study, PwC surveyed 60 of what it termed the nation's most influential healthcare leaders, who seem to agree that healthcare quality improvement efforts have lost their its momentum, despite high-profile successes efforts like the Institute for …

In 2006, employers, managed care plans, trade groups, state governments and federal agencies took an aggressive role in bringing pricing and outcomes data to the public. It looks like the transparency trend that took center stage last year will continue to expand, as CMS announced yesterday that it would post hospitals' heart attack and heart failure death rates on the web. But rather than posting actual death rates, the government will compare hospitals and let patients know if a …

The Texas Medical Association is not pleased. Leaders of the 41,000 physician trade group have fired off a broadside sharply criticizing the new physician rating system proposed by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. The 3.3 million member health plan plans to create a Web-based physician ratings offering, scheduled to go live on January 1, which will use dark blue, light blue and gray ribbons to indicate the extent to which a given physician complies with evidence-based practices. The …

In using quality ratings, patients and health purchasers may feel they're getting some assurance that they can predict the outcome of their care. Well, in this case, apparently they can't--at least not yet. According to new research, there seems to be little difference in hospital death rates for three common conditions (heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia) regardless of how the hospitals rank on Medicare hospital performance measures. The study, by the University of Pennsylvania's …

Starting December 18, Massachusetts officials will begin publishing death rates for individual heart surgeons on a publicly accessible website. The site will offer mortality rate information on 55 surgeons who perform cardiac bypasses, one of the most common operations. In New York, where surgeon mortality data has been available since 1991, officials say the program has lowered death rates. Massachusetts surgeons, for their part, have expressed concern that public reporting will …

> Sierra Health Services, Nevada's largest insurer, is nearing the end of its contract with three HCA hospitals in Las Vegas. Both sides hope they can renegotiate a contract before time runs out. Article

> In Florida, HCA has started a program to ease ER overcrowding. HCA hospitals will refer non-emergency patients to nearby clinics. Critics say the program will only serve to …

A study published in this month's issue of the Annals of Surgery calls into question whether older surgeons should be allowed to continue practicing medicine. With aging comes decreased fine motor skills, worse eyesight and less stamina--all of which are key skills for surgeons. The study found that surgeons over 65 had higher patient death rates than younger surgeons, did not perform as well on recertification exams and were less likely to know about new treatments and techniques. …

California released comprehensive data on cardiac bypass death rates at hospitals in the state. The report is from 2003, the last year that data is available. The best performers were St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles, St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard and UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. Interestingly, the four worst performing hospitals were all once owned by Tenet healthcare, which has since sold three of the facilities in question. The state plans to release a …