Will elderly patients stand aside for younger patients in the queue for cardiac services?

Triage for coronary artery bypass graft surgery in Canada: Do patients agree on who should come first?

“…The valuation of social independence is consistent with the views of other stakeholders in Canada, and elsewhere [8,9]. However, unlike other studies which examined the perspectives of public and physician stakeholders [8,9], age itself did not significantly impact on perceptions of waiting list priority.…”

“…The valuation of social independence is consistent with the views of other stakeholders in Canada, and elsewhere [8,9]. However, unlike other studies which examined the perspectives of public and physician stakeholders [8,9], age itself did not significantly impact on perceptions of waiting list priority. Such inconsistency may have been attributable to the fact that age may serve as a surrogate for other social and cognitive attributes – both of which impacted on patients' waiting-list prioritization preferences.…”

“…While there is intense debate within each of its provincial jurisdictions over the future of Medicare [11,12], there has been little, if any societal debate with regards to the relative merits and pitfalls associated with the selective integration of social-factors into public-funding models, despite the fact that such factors have already been shown to influence cardiac service delivery in Ontario[7,13]. We hypothesized that patients in the CABG surgical queue would value Canada's universal Medicare principals and prioritize themselves, and others based on clinical acuity, but would also be willing to cede their own place in the queue to others who were younger, socially independent and employed individuals [7,8]. …”

Age- and sex-related utilisation of cardiac procedures and interventions: a multicentric study in Italy

“…This access often occurs without clinical evidence from international research [21 -23]. Even if in Italy elderly patients are hypothetically willing to cede priority in accessing cardiac care to younger persons [24], further investigation regarding the clinical management of cardiac patients is required to explain the clinicians' behaviour in selecting a particular intervention within this particular healthcare field.…”

The Elderly Patient and Cardiac Surgery – A Mini-Review

“…Elderly patients with unstable coronary artery disease benefit from coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) more than from conservative treatment, with a 3-year survival rate after CABG of 77%, compared to 55% in patients receiving conservative treatment [8,9] .…”