Additional data, feedback on hospital care did not improve heart failure outcomes

Enhanced quality improvement program did not further reduce readmissions, deaths

2021-05-17

(Press-News.org) A program designed to improve hospital care for patients with heart failure, the leading cause of hospitalization among adults over age 65, did not bring additional benefits beyond existing hospital quality improvement programs in a randomized controlled trial presented at the American College of Cardiology's 70th Annual Scientific Session.

Heart failure is a condition in which the heart becomes too weak or too stiff to pump blood effectively to the rest of the body. It causes symptoms such as swelling and fluid retention, shortness of breath and coughing.

In the CONNECT-HF study, one group of hospitals received additional auditing and feedback on performance and their quality of care for heart failure patients from an external group--in addition to their own existing quality improvement program. However, the group of hospitals showed no significant differences compared with hospitals that did not receive the intervention in terms of heart failure rehospitalization or death and a composite score for heart failure care quality.

"We were disappointed to find no difference," said Adam DeVore, MD, a cardiologist at Duke University Medical Center and the study's lead author. "These principles of audit and feedback don't seem to improve upon what already exists in terms of quality improvement for heart failure. This strategy doesn't work above what we are already doing; we need to find other ones that do, and we have a lot of work ahead of us."

Over the course of three years, the study enrolled 5,647 patients treated for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction at 161 participating hospitals. All hospitals already had an on-site quality improvement program designed to ensure compliance with END

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Additional data, feedback on hospital care did not improve heart failure outcomes

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