FRIDAY, Sept. 15 (HealthDay News) -- The American Heart Association's Get
With the Guidelines (GWTG) Heart Failure program has significantly improved patient care at participating hospitals, but there is still room for improvement, according to two studies presented this week at the Heart Failure Society of America's 10th annual scientific meeting, in Seattle.
For both studies, Gregg C. Fonarow, M.D., director of the Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopthy Center in Los Angeles and chairman of the Get With the Guidelines Steering Committee, and colleagues evaluated 18,516 heart failure patients treated at 97 GWTG hospitals between January 2005 and March 2006. Performance measures included discharge instructions, measurement of heart function, ACEI/ARB use, beta-blocker use, and smoking cessation counseling.
In the first study, the researchers observed significant improvements in the use of ACE inhibitors/ARBs, beta-blockers, discharge instructions, and smoking cessation counseling, but found no improvement in measurement of left ventricular function, which remained static over the four quarters at a little over 90 percent. In the second study, the researchers found that there were no missed opportunities for care in 64.6 percent of patients.
"With at least one missed opportunity for complete care in up to 35 percent of patients, further efforts are needed to enhance the reliability of heart failure care delivery," the authors concluded.
The program and the studies were funded in part by GlaxoSmithKline.
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