Study backs specialists implanting heart devices

Patients who had heart defibrillators implanted by specialists had fewer serious complications than patients who got them implanted by other types of doctors, according to a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association. The study reviewed the experiences of more than 110,000 patients who received defibrillators and other heart devices between January 2006 and June 2007. Over all, the study found that the rate of serious complications like heart attacks or internal bleeding that occurred during the implant of a heart device was lowest when the procedure was performed by an electrophysiologist.