Heart Failure

The payment reform movement has changed the thinking about what can be done for patients with diabetes and heart failure, for the good of patients.

The first major update since 2003 was announced this week during the 2017 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.

Reimbursement policy has been a driver of change in the way hospitals handle heart failure patients.

During a session at the 2017 American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, a cardiologist joined rheumatologists to give a detailed look at the relationship between rheumatic conditions and cardiovascular disease.

While current, prior, and change in the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire score were all significnatly associated with lower risk of mortality and heart failure hospitalization in isolation, when the current score was included with either prior or change score, only the current score was significantly associated with lower risk for all-cause mortality.

Transitional care interventions are considered evidence-based, designed to ensure coordination and continuity of care when patients are transferred to different levels of care, and to prevent hospital readmissions of heart failure patients.

Patients with heart failure tend to have other health issues, requiring cardiologists to understand how to care for heart failure while keeping in mind treatment for these other comorbidities, said panelists at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2017, held August 26-30 in Barcelona, Spain.

The connection between diabetes and cardiovascular disease is well-known, but a new study gets at the mechanism of how this occurs.

Hospital 30-day readmission rates associated with the Affordable Care Act for heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, and pneumonia are weakly but significantly correlated with reductions in hospital 30-day mortality rates after discharge, according to a new study.

Researchers at the Medical College of Georgia show how age causes a protection against inflammation to decline.

The findings demonstrate why quality ratings focus heavily on managing diabetes and targeting 30-day readmission rates.

The CANVAS study’s outcomes were “a positive first step” in proving that canagliflozin can be used for the primary prevention of heart failure in patients with diabetes, but more evidence is needed, according to the study’s lead author, Bruce Neal, MB, ChB, PhD, of the George Institute for Global Health at UNSW Sydney, who presented the findings at the 77th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association’s in San Diego, California.

At a symposium at the 77th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association, experts suggested that the relationship between heart failure and diabetes is finally getting the attention it deserves.