Are Black And White Patients Treated Differently Post Acute MI’s?
So, I have a sticky kind of topic to share with you today…
A large study has found that black Medicare patients are less likely than white patients to receive blood vessel opening procedures such as angioplasty following a heart attack, whether they are admitted to hospitals that provide or do not provide these procedures, but also experience higher mortality rates at 1 year, according to a study in the June 13 issue of JAMA.
Why the difference? Do you really think it is solely race related or are there other factors that play in to the decisions for interventions?
“These differences could be due to unmeasured clinical or socioeconomic factors, patient preferences, and unmeasured aspects of medical decision making but are unlikely to be related to differences in access to hospitals performing revascularization procedures. Although differences in revascularization may reflect overuse of procedures in white patients, the receipt of revascularization could also explain some of the differences in longer-term mortality in black patients and may represent a broader marker of differences in post-AMI care between black and white patients”
I want to know what your opinion is on this topic. Don’t hold back, don’t be scared, all opinions are welcomed and wanted. I have not personally experienced nor observed this in my clinical practice. And for a point of reference, I work at a hospital approximately 15 miles outside Baltimore City.
Don’t you think there should be standardized care for post MI patients across the board? Doesn’t everyone deserve the same treatment, regardless of insurance, income, gender, race or status?
via Science Daily
Tags: angioplasty, baltimore_city, blood_vessel, do_you_really_think, gender_race, heart_attack, hospitals, interventions, medical_decision, medicare_patients, mortality_rates, patient_preferences, point_of_reference, revascularization_procedures, science_daily, socioeconomic_factors, year_accordingRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Hearty Blogging, Hearty News, People With Heart Disease
1 opinion for Are Black And White Patients Treated Differently Post Acute MI’s?
Kendra James, RN
Jun 14, 2007 at 2:49 am
Come on and digg this one, stumble upon it or reddit it all the way home. I think it is worth talking about! Let’s get it going on….
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