Women over the age of 65 who require complex heart surgery are more likely than men to receive care at low quality hospitals -; where they also die in greater numbers following the procedure, a Michigan Medicine study finds. The research, published in JAMA Network Open , covered nearly 450,000 Medicare beneficiaries who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting, or heart bypass surgery, between late 2015 and early 2020. Compared to men, women were 1.
26 times more likely to be treated at low quality hospitals, meaning facilities with the highest 30-day mortality rates. At those low quality hospitals, women died in 7% of overall cases while men died nearly 5% of the time. The sex disparity in mortality doubled from high quality to low quality hospitals.
"Nationwide, women are both more likely to die after heart bypass surgery and more likely to undergo surgery at low quality hospitals," said Catherine M. Wagner, M.D.
, M.Sc., first author and integrated thoracic surgery resident at University of Michigan Health.
It is known that women have a higher mortality rate for this procedure. And our findings suggest a major need for improvement at low quality hospitals, as well as more equitable referral of women to high quality hospitals to narrow the gap we are seeing after high risk surgery." Catherine M.
Wagner, Integrated Thoracic Surgery Resident, University of Michigan Health In the study, women more commonly had unplanned admissions ahead of coronary artery bypass grafting, often.
