Population Health Research Institute, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, Canadian Institutes of Health Research Strategy for Patient Oriented Research through the Ontario SPOR Support Unit, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, pharmaceutical companies (with major contributions from AstraZeneca [Canada], Sanofi Aventis [France and Canada], Boehringer Ingelheim [Germany amd Canada], Servier, and GlaxoSmithKline), Novartis and King Pharma, and national or local organisations in participating countries.
In China, hypertension is common, and while recent studies suggest some improvements, more than half of affected individuals were unaware that they had hypertension. Rates of control remain low. National programs effective in preventing and controlling hypertension in China are urgently needed.
Key Points
Question
What are the differences in care and outcomes of patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction among 3 vertical levels of hospitals in China?
Findings
In this cross-sectional study using data from the China Acute Myocardial Infarction Registry, which included 108 hospitals at the province, prefecture, and county levels, compared with patients in province-level hospitals, the rates of reperfusion therapy were lower among those in prefecture-level and county-level hospitals (69.4% vs 54.3% vs 45.8%). In-hospital mortality rates progressively increased among the 3 levels of hospitals, from 3.1% at the province level to 5.3% at the prefecture level to 10.2% at the county level.
Meaning
These findings suggest that more efforts should be made to address the gaps in care and outcomes of ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction for national quality improvement in China.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.