November 14, 2024
Archive

VA heart patients show higher mortality

WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs said Friday that it’s not as good at taking care of heart attack patients as it thinks it is – or as it should be.

Heart patients treated at VA hospitals have consistently higher mortality rates than patients of similar age and in roughly similar health who are treated at non-VA institutions. A larger proportion of the veterans die in the first month after suffering a heart attack, and a larger proportion of the survivors die over the next three years.

Those were two key findings of a new study, which also found VA patients undergo cardiac catheterization – a key step in assessing the seriousness of a person’s heart disease – less often than patients treated in non-VA hospitals. And they have only about half the likelihood of undergoing angioplasty or bypass surgery, two procedures that can often extend life.


Have feedback? Want to know more? Send us ideas for follow-up stories.

comments for this post are closed

You may also like