Albuquerque Journal

State Cancer Care Above Average N.M. Fares Badly In Heart Disease
By Olivier Uyttebrouck, Journal Staff Writer

New Mexico did a better job than most states treating people for cancer in 2007, but the state provided below-average care for heart patients, children and pregnant women, a federal agency reports.
   
The annual report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that New Mexico's death rate is below the national average for breast, prostate and colorectal cancer.
   
Overall, the state scored at the low end of "average" with other states on about 100 health-care performance measures, the 2007 National Healthcare Quality Report found.
   
But New Mexico too often fails to provide best-practice medical care for heart patients, such as prescribing aspirin and beta blockers for patients with certain heart conditions, the agency reports.
   
Dr. Warren Laskey, chief of cardiology at the University of New Mexico, said the data may be misleading because small, rural hospitals often do a poor job collecting and reporting data.
   
"It's a wake-up call to hospitals out there to document what they're doing," he said of the report.
   
New Mexico ranked 47th nationally in the percentage of heart attack patients prescribed beta blockers on discharge from a hospital, according to the report. New Mexico heart patients also are less likely to receive smoking cessation counseling in hospitals.
   
State Health Secretary Dr. Alfredo Vigil said New Mexico struggles in national comparisons because many poor and uninsured New Mexicans drag down the state's performance measures.
   
"In New Mexico, it always breaks down to the haves and the have-nots," Vigil said. He used the state's weak performance in maternal and child health care as an example.
   
"Eighty percent of New Mexico women get excellent prenatal care," Vigil said. For the remaining 20 percent, he said, "their statistics are so poor that they drag down the health statistics for the whole state."
   
The federal report found that about 69 percent of pregnant women in New Mexico received prenatal care in the first trimester, well below the national average of 84 percent. New Mexico ranked 43 among states in that performance measure.
   
The state's large number of uninsured weigh down the state's health measures, said Dr. David Scrase, chief operating officer for Presbyterian Healthcare Services.
   
"I think our base issue is that we have so many uninsured people, and that creates a barrier to access," Scrase said.