Emergency Room Visits Decrease the Risk of Atrial Fibrillation Complications

Some time ago, awareness campaigns told people to go to the emergency room if they suffer from an irregular heartbeat. The awareness campaign was addressed to the ones suffering from atrial fibrillation, so that they prevent any possible serious heart diseases like heart attacks.

It seems that those awareness campaigns from decades ago worked. Many people who suffer from atrial fibrillation go to the emergency room to avoid any future heart strokes. There is another concern because the government is taking over the health department and many worry about the costs of the visits to the emergency room and who will pay them.
Atrial fibrillation is the most common forms of irregular heartbeat or arrhythmia. If left unattended, it can lead to strokes, blood clots, heart failures and other heart problems.

After researching the patients who visited the emergency room suffering from atrial fibrillation found in the Nationwide Emergency Department Data, the scientists found that:
– The average rate of those admitted for atrial fibrillation was about 65%. This means that the doctors were saying that the patients’ condition was serious. The admission rate for atrial fibrillation was 63.5% in 2006, and gone up to 67% in 2011.
– The in-hospital death rates decreased with 1.18% in 2006 to 0.97% in 2011. This means that the patients’ hospitalized care improved significantly in the last years.
– The number of the patients suffering from atrial fibrillation who have visited the emergency room has gone up from 133 visits per 100,000 people in 2006 to 165 visits per 100,000 people in 2011.

The statistics show that the people who paid a higher admission rate for visiting the emergency room for atrial fibrillation were elder people, female, had Medicaid or Medicare insurance, lived in areas with a low median income. Some of them visited teaching hospitals and metropolitan and the northeast area.

One of the researchers, Sourabh Aggarwal said that:

“The huge demographic and geographic variations highlight the unmet need for interventions to decrease hospitalization rates.”

The latest awareness regarding people suffering from atrial fibrillation seems to be working as many patients are visiting the emergency rooms. This could mean that more people can decrease the risks of developing strokes, blood clots and other heart-related complications.

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Christina Langfold

Remember that weird girl in school who never quite managed to fit in? Who was always silent and strange? That was me during my entire teenage life. A few years after finishing college (with a degree in arts) I decided that the best way to become more sociable, while also feeling safe, is to test my people skills online.