Outcome after acute myocardial infarction: a comparison of patients seen by cardiologists and general physicians

Abubakar, Ibrahim, Kanka, David, Arch, Barbara, Porter, Jo and Weissberg, Peter (2004) Outcome after acute myocardial infarction: a comparison of patients seen by cardiologists and general physicians. BMC Cardiovascular Disorders, 4.

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Abstract

Background: The management of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has improved over the last 50 years with the more frequent use of effective medicines and procedures. The clinical benefit of the speciality of the attending physician is less clear. The United Kingdom National Service Framework for coronary heart disease (CHD) suggested that patients with CHD are likely to benefit from cardiological supervision. We set out to assess the effect of access to cardiologists on survival among AMI patients admitted in two UK hospitals. Methods: The study was conducted in a university hospital and a district general hospital in England. Information was obtained on age, sex, ethnicity, Carstairs socioeconomic deprivation category derived from postcode of residence, comorbidity, distance from hospital and medication from all patients admitted with acute myocardial infarction in two acute trusts between July 1999 and June 2000. Record linkage to subsequent Hospital Episode Statistics and Registrar General's death records provided follow up information on procedures and mortality up to eighteen months after admission. Cox proportional hazard models were used to investigate the main hypothesis controlling for confounding. The main outcome measure was 18-month survival after myocardial infarction. Results: Access to a cardiologist was univariately associated with improved survival (hazard ratio 0.16, 95% CI 0.10 to 0.25). This effect remained after controlling for the effect of patient characteristics (hazard ratio 0.22, 95% CI 0.14 to 0.25). The effect disappeared after controlling for access to effective medication (hazard ratio 0.70, 95% CI 0.33 to 1.46). Conclusions: Access to a cardiologist is associated with better survival compared to no access to a cardiologist among a cohort of patients already admitted with AMI. This effect is mainly due to the more frequent use of effective medicines by the group referred to cardiologists. Hospitals may improve survival by improving access to effective medicines and by coordinating care between cardiologists and general physicians.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© Abubakar et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2004 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://​creativecommons.​org/​licenses/​by/​2.​0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Depositing User:	EPrints Services
Date Deposited:	25 Nov 2010 11:08
Last Modified:	24 Oct 2022 02:34
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/12073
DOI:	10.1186/1471-2261-4-14

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