USA Health Care - Still Not #1

So how does the USA stand, when compared with 18 other industrialized countries, on preventing death? Last.



This graph is from a study published in Health Affairs, Jan./Feb. 2008 by Nolte and McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (my Alma Mater). The authors point out that if the USA were able to reduce amenable mortality to the average of the top three performing countries - over 100,000 people would not have died. The authors also point out that
"The rate of amenable mortality is a valuable indicator of health care performance".

Maybe the poor performance of the USA has to do with this - Why Hospitals Are Dangerous Places for Heart Attacks. [see Delayed Time to Defibrillation after In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest in the New England Journal of Medicine, abstract here]