Assessing Efficacy of Post-Acute Heart Failure Discharge Follow-Ups at a Safety-Net Hospital

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Recent data shows that when adults are discharged after hospitalization for acute heart failure (HF), a clinic follow up with either cardiology or general medicine within 7 days results in significantly lower chances of 30 day readmissions. We sought to analyze the trends of clinic follow up after acute HF hospitalization and the associated barriers and facilitators at our safety net hospital. Method(s) Data was extracted from the electronic medical records using ICD 9,10 codes for acute HF admissions between Jan 2019 and Dec 2021. Quarterly trends of rates of clinic follow up were analyzed over the past 3 years;t-test was used to assess for statistical significance. Multivariable logistic regression models were constructed to test the association between patient level factors and clinic follow up after adjusting for sociodemographic factors. A p value < 0.05 was used to establish significance. Result(s) Of 1,037 patients admitted for acute HF between 2019-2021, 29.5% were 65 years or older, 64.7% were males, 48.7% were Black and 16.6% were uninsured. Only 8% and 23.1% had a 7 and 14 day clinic follow up respectively. Of those with scheduled follow up 65% and 56% showed up to their appointments at 7 and 14 days respectively. Overtime we noted an increase in the proportion of encounters with a 7 day follow up although the effective follow up (after accounting for no-shows) remained unchanged. Patients that had an inpatient cardiology consult had higher odds of getting a 7 day follow up (OR=1.42, p value = 0.001) after adjusting for age, gender, insurance status and race (black > white, OR = 1.34, p<0.001). Conclusion(s) Our study showed that the effective 7 day follow up did not improve from 2019 to 2021 likely due to COVID19 pandemic. However, a significantly higher proportion of patients obtained 7 day appointments in the last quarter with room for improvement. Steps to increase follow up rates include intervening on the highlighted modifiable factors to achieve better results. (Figure Presented).