Health Highlights: July 9, 2009

July 10 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Heart Patient Death Rates Vary Widely in U.S.: Study

Hospitals in Arkansas, Oklahoma and California have the highest death rates for patients with heart attack or heart failure, while hospitals in northeastern states such as New Jersey and Massachusetts have the lowest rates, says a Yale University School of Medicine study.

Among hospitals across the United States, 25 percent of patients hospitalized for heart failure and 20 percent of heart attack survivors were readmitted within 30 days, which indicates "uniformly poor performance," said the researchers, Bloomberg news reported.

The study authors analyzed Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data on almost 600,000 hospital admissions for heart attack and more than one million admissions for heart failure between July 2005 and June 2008.

They found that a median of 16.6 percent of heart attack patients died within 30 days of being admitted to a hospital. Rates ranged from 10.9 percent in the best-performing hospitals to 24.9 percent in the worst.

The findings indicate "that patients' outcomes are dependent, at least in part, on the hospital that provides their care," study leader Dr. Harlan Krumholz said in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg. "If we could better understand how the best hospitals achieve their results and help the hospitals that are not doing as well improve, we could save many more lives."

The study appears in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

-----

Michael Jackson's Use of White Glove Linked to Lupus: Report

Pop star Michael Jackson's famous white glove and his occasional use of a surgical mask and umbrella to avoid sun exposure may have been connected to the chronic autoimmune disorder lupus.