subject: Productivity in Heart Attack Treatments #2 [print this page] Productivity in Heart Attack Treatments #2
Several of these procedures highlight the substantial technological progress in treating heart attacks over the past 20 years. For example, many drug therapies, including clot-busting agents, have been developed over this time.Angioplasty was developed in the mid-1980s and further modified in the 1990s to include the use of stents to keep arteries open. In addition, evidence indicates that older procedures, such as bypass surgery, which was introduced in the 1970s, are now more effective.
Figure 1 shows the per capita number of heart attacks, deaths from heart attacks, and invasive heart surgeries in the U.S. over the last 20 years. Although the number of heart attacks has been roughly constant, the increase in invasive treatments and the decrease in deaths from heart attacks have been huge. Heart bypass surgery has grown at an average annual rate of 8.4%, and angioplasty has grown from nothing to be even more common than heart attacks. Both treatments also can be used to prevent heart attacks, and this use is growing. Deaths from heart disease are declining at an annual rate of 2.0%.
Productivity and cost changes
One can measure the productivity of heart attack treatments by examining their impact on patient health outcomes. Cutler and McClellan (2001) examined a large data set of Medicare patients created from hospital insurance claims to the government and found that, corresponding to the decline in deaths from heart disease, the average life expectancy for elderly heart attack patients has increased by just over one year between 1984 and 1998. Evidence also shows that the quality of life following heart attacks has improved.
You Can Read More Heart Attack Article at: HeartAttack.gooprice.com
