Are AMI Patients with Comorbid Mental Illness More Likely to be Admitted to Hospitals with Lower Quality of AMI Care?

OBJECTIVE Older patients with comorbid mental illness are shown to receive less appropriate care for their medical conditions. This study analyzed Medicare patients hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and determined whether those with comorbid mental illness were more likely to present to hospitals with lower quality of AMI care. METHODS Retrospective analyses of Medicare claims in 2008. Hospital quality was measured using the five "Hospital Compare" process indicators (aspirin at admission/discharge, beta-blocker at admission/discharge, and angiotension-converting enzyme inhibitor or angiotension receptor blocker for left ventricular dysfunction). Multinomial logit model determined the association of mental illness with admission to low-quality hospitals (rank of the composite process score <10(th) percentile) or high-quality hospitals (rank>90(th) percentile), compared to admissions to other hospitals with medium quality. Multivariate analyses further determined the effects of hospital type and mental diagnosis on outcomes. RESULTS Among all AMI admissions to 2,845 hospitals, 41,044 out of 287,881 patients were diagnosed with mental illness. Mental illness predicted a higher likelihood of admission to low-quality hospitals (unadjusted rate 2.9% vs. 2.0%; adjusted odds ratio [OR]1.25, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.17-1.34, p<0.01), and an equal likelihood to high-quality hospitals (unadjusted rate 9.8% vs. 10.3%; adjusted OR 0.97, 95% CI 0.93-1.01, p = 0.11). Both lower hospital quality and mental diagnosis predicted higher rates of 30-day readmission, 30-day mortality, and 1-year mortality. CONCLUSIONS Among Medicare myocardial infarction patients, comorbid mental illness was associated with an increased risk for admission to lower-quality hospitals. Both lower hospital quality and mental illness predicted worse post-AMI outcomes.