Patients with heart attacks and other forms of chest pain are three to five times more likely to experience serious complications after hospital admission when they are treated in a crowded emergency department (ED), according to a new study published in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine.

Depressed heart attack patients have a higher risk for sudden death in the months following a heart attack. Now a team led by researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that the risk continues for many years.

If you go to the hospital within one to two hours of the onset of symptoms of a heart attack, your chances of getting proper treatment are nearly 70 percent greater than those who wait 11 to 12 hours before seeking treatment, according to results presented today at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2007 in Orlando, Fla.

Far more of today’s heart attack patients receive emergency angioplasty treatment or clot-busting drugs to re-open their clogged heart arteries than even a decade ago, a new study finds.

Heart attack patients as far as 150 miles away from a 24-hour emergency heart care center were able to receive treatment for blocked arteries within or faster than current recommended time frames, according to a study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Heart attack patients received lifesaving treatment quickly when hospitals and communities used an integrated, rapid transfer system to get patients to a facility equipped to perform artery-opening procedures, according to a report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Heart attack patients admitted to hospitals ranked to be among “America’s Best” by U.S. News & World Report are less likely to die within 30 days than those patients admitted to non-ranked hospitals, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in the July 9 Archives of Internal Medicine.

Heart attack patients received lifesaving care up to an hour sooner after an Indiana hospital implemented a novel protocol to rapidly activate the cardiac catheterization lab, researchers reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Imagine paramedics mobilizing a team of cardiologists and nurses within minutes of arriving at the home of a person who is having a heart attack, simply by pressing a button that sends an electrocardiogram (ECG) over a wireless network.

Contrary to some previous studies, rural hospitals in Iowa do provide quality care for patients with heart attacks and do not have higher death rates when compared to urban hospitals, report University of Iowa researchers.