Introduction:

The opportunity to receive emergency medical assistance is decisive in the health quality associated to mortality. This study aims to define the relationship between survival of patients with coronary disease in the coronary care unit who had the opportunity to receive emergency medical care.

Material and methods:

A descriptive retrospective study was conducted, registers for the coronary care unit, emergency room and death certificates of patients diagnosed with coronary disease were collected, general characteristics of patients were identified and differences in survival according to the opportunity of accessing to healthcare in Kapplan-Meier curves for subgroups for a confidence level of 95% was explored.

Results:

266 cases were presented, 68.4% were male, average age was 68; median opportunity to receive emergency care was 57 minutes, median stay at the coronary care unit was 2 days and 2 days for survival; survival analysis for the state of the admission showed higher survival in patients who were assisted in less than 70 minutes.

Conclusions:

Patients with coronary disease waiting over 70 minutes in the emergency room are associated to higher mortality. Improvements in the registers are required in order to assess factors associated to the delay in the access to medical care.

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