AMI (Acute myocardial infarction)

Background: Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the most frequent cause of death in middle-aged and elderly adults in most industrialised countries, and acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is one of the main causes of mortality among CHD patients. In 2007 about 1.7 million patients (about 200 per population of 100 000) were discharged from hospitals with AMI as the main diagnosis in the OECD countries (OECD health data 2010), indicating that their care uses a lot of resources in health care systems. Well known evidence based guidelines are available for diagnosing and treating the AMI patients in time and to get the best outcome.

Aim: To develop and update the protocol for international comparison of outcomes and resources used in treating AMI patients, to perform the comparison, and to describe and explore reasons for differences in performance.

Data: Routine data on hospital discharge registers, cause of death statistics and other relevant available national registers.

Output: Country- and regional-level benchmarking data including indicators on content of care (use of services and procedures, costs, treatment practices, process indicators) and outcomes. Reports and scientific articles describing the protocols, methods, indicators as well as variations between and within European countries, exploring the reasons behind the performance differences between countries, regions and providers, and evaluating the relationship between outcomes and costs.