Hospitals still falling short in heart and pneumonia care

Filed in archive News on July 20, 2005

Significant amount of patients still aren't receiving basic, life-saving treatment at hospitals, according to studies from the NEJM. This is where clinical pathways can help:

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.

(Weise, "Hospitals found to fall short on heart, pneumonia care", USA Today, Jul.20)