A gender gap has been uncovered in care for cardiac arrest patients. | Courtesy of Shutterstock
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Amanda Rupp | Jun 23, 2016

Gender gap revealed in care for cardiac arrest patients

According to the recent American Heart Association (AHA) Rapid Access Journal Report, a study has found a significant gender gap in the care that cardiac arrest patients receive at hospitals.

There has been an increase in the number of cardiac arrest patients who receive hospital treatments, but there has been a decrease in hospital death rates for men and women alike. Unfortunately, despite these figures, women are not as likely as men to survive: according to the research, women who receive cardiac arrest treatments at hospitals are not as likely as men to be given life-saving procedures.

“The troublesome part of our paper is that, just as with many other treatments, we’re still not doing as good a job with women as men,” Luke Kim, study lead author and assistant professor of medicine in the cardiology division of New York's Weill Cornell Medical College, said. “Women tend to get less immediate care when time is essential.”

Life-saving procedures include angiography, when doctors search for blocked coronary arteries, and angioplasty, when doctors open the blocked arteries of the heart.

“Cardiac arrest is one of the few medical emergencies where there’s a huge impact due to how the public responds to it,” Kim said. “If someone can get to a patient right away and do CPR, that patient has a chance.”

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