Cardiologists’ effectiveness varies widely by region, research suggests

Data suggest substantial regional variation in the quality of cardiologists when treating patients with myocardial infarction (MI), with patients living in the North East and East of England regions receiving worse care on average than patients living in other areas.

Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that, among 100 otherwise identical patients, an additional four patients living in the North East and an additional two patients living in the East of England would have survived for at least a year if they had instead been treated by a cardiologist with the average effectiveness of a cardiologist treating patients in London.1

The researchers used anonymised records of more than half a million patients in England from 2005 to 2018 to estimate the causal effect that each consultant cardiologist had on the probability that an individual patient with MI would survive for at least a year after being admitted to …