Quality of Hospital Care for Acute MI

Data from the National Registry of Myocardial Infarction shed light on the relation between process measures and hospital-specific variation in 30-day mortality.

U.S. hospitals must report quality process measures for acute-MI care to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). To determine whether improvements on these measures are associated with better 30-day survival, researchers analyzed CMS/JCAHO data for January 2002 through March 2003 from 962 hospitals participating in the National Registry of Myocardial Infarction.

Medication-use measures (beta-blocker and aspirin use at admission, and beta-blocker, aspirin, and ACE-inhibitor use at discharge) correlated strongly with each other but less well, though still significantly, with measures of smoking-cessation counseling and timely reperfusion therapy. Each p…

Reviewing Author

Joel M. Gore, MD