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AMI Trends: Incidence, Detection, and Treatment
February 2016
This Fact File examines trends in the detection and treatment of acute myocardial infarctions, or heart attacks, in two distinct groups:
STEMI—ST segment elevation myocardial infarction, with the ST segment referring to a specific part of an electrocardiogram tracing. In STEMI, the coronary artery is completely blocked and cardiac muscle dies. NSTEMI—Non-ST segment elevation myocardial infarction. In NSTEMI, a coronary artery is partially blocked.
The Truven Health Analytics 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals study identifies U.S. hospitals that have achieved the best performance on a balanced scorecard of performance measures. Based on comparisons between study winners and a peer group of similar hospitals that were not winners, winners are achieving better outcomes while operating more efficiently and at a lower cost. If all cardiovascular providers performed at the same level of this year's winners, almost 8,000 additional lives could be saved; nearly 3,500 heart patients could be complication free; and more than $1.3 billion could be saved.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality?s Patient Safety Indicators (PSI) are a set of metrics that provide information on the potential for inpatient hospital complications and adverse events following surgeries, procedures, and childbirth. PSIs can be used to help hospitals identify potential adverse events that might need further evaluation, provide the opportunity to assess the incidence of adverse events and complications, and understand patient safety events on a broader level. In the United States in 2013, adverse outcomes were attributable to:
2,176,763 additional days of stay
$8,011,500,131 in additional total hospital costs of care
Medicare spend per beneficiary (MSPB) information is a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services metric that reflects the average cost of an episode of care for Medicare patients. This measure is important to consider as part of a hospital's national balanced scorecard, as it reflects executives' efforts to transform the healthcare delivery system and manage the full continuum of care, including the prominent shift from inpatient to outpatient utilization.
