Key Guideline-Recommended Therapies Improve Survival For Heart Failure Patients
Posted Apr 04 2011 8:58pm
A UCLA-led study has found that adherence to national guideline–recommended therapies for heart failure in an outpatient practice setting significantly lowered the mortality rate of heart failure patients.
The findings are published in the April 4 online edition of the journal Circulation.
This is one of the first studies to examine how conformity with current and emerging heart-failure quality measures can impact patient survival and outcomes in the outpatient setting.
A chronic, progressive disease, heart failure impacts millions and results in morbidity, death, the use of significant health care resources, and significant costs. While quality-of-care measures based on national guidelines from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association have been developed, and while prior studies have shown that performance-improvement initiatives substantially improve conformity with these measures, it was unclear if these efforts could improve survival in the real-world clinical practice setting.
“This study establishes a strong process-of-care–clinical outcome link and provides evidence that specific heart failure therapies effectively improve patient survival in an outpatient setting,” said the study’s first author, Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, UCLA’s Elliot Corday Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Science and director of the Ahmanson–UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “These results have significant clinical and public health implications in helping track and improve quality of care and heart-failure patient outcomes.”
A UCLA-led study has found that adherence to national guideline–recommended therapies for heart failure in an outpatient practice setting significantly lowered the mortality rate of heart failure patients.
The findings are published in the April 4 online edition of the journal Circulation.
This is one of the first studies to examine how conformity with current and emerging heart-failure quality measures can impact patient survival and outcomes in the outpatient setting.
A chronic, progressive disease, heart failure impacts millions and results in morbidity, death, the use of significant health care resources, and significant costs. While quality-of-care measures based on national guidelines from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association have been developed, and while prior studies have shown that performance-improvement initiatives substantially improve conformity with these measures, it was unclear if these efforts could improve survival in the real-world clinical practice setting.
“This study establishes a strong process-of-care–clinical outcome link and provides evidence that specific heart failure therapies effectively improve patient survival in an outpatient setting,” said the study’s first author, Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, UCLA’s Elliot Corday Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Science and director of the Ahmanson–UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “These results have significant clinical and public health implications in helping track and improve quality of care and heart-failure patient outcomes.”