Rural and urban PH patients receive equivalent care

As most PH clinics are in large cities, PH patients living in rural or remote areas and who must travel long distances to their clinic might wonder if they are receiving care at the same level as PH patients living in bigger cities. A study done in BC and published in the International Journal of Cardiology[1] offers some reassurance.

The authors looked at the size of the community in which patients lived and how long it took them to travel to their PH clinic. They also examined how sick they were when they were diagnosed and their prognosis at follow-up appointments.

PH patients living in smaller, more remote communities were not sicker either at diagnosis or at follow-up than patients in urban areas, which suggests that the care they receive is not worse than the care urban patients receive. It also suggests that telemedicine – which the clinic in this study uses extensively – can be effective.

Read the journal article here.

[1] Does community size or commute time affect severity of illness at diagnosis or quality of care in a centralized care model of pulmonary hypertension? Brunner, Nathan W. et al. International Journal of Cardiology, Volume 332, 175 – 181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcard.2021.03.035