Heart attack patients die at a higher rate when their nearest emergency room is so overtaxed that the ambulance transporting them is dispatched to another hospital, according to a new study led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco.
The findings will be published online June 12, 2011 by JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. The research also will be presented on June 13, 2011 at the AcademyHealth's annual research meeting in Seattle, WA.