Predicting costs of care in heart failure patients.

BACKGROUND: Identifying heart failure patients most likely to suffer poor outcomes is an essential part of delivering interventions to those most likely to benefit. We sought a comprehensive account of heart failure events and their cumulative economic burden by examining patient characteristics that predict increased cost or poor outcomes. METHODS: We collected electronic medical data from members of a large HMO who had a heart failure diagnosis and an echocardiogram from 1999-2004, and followed them for one year. We examined the role of demographics, clinical and laboratory findings, comorbid disease and whether the heart failure was incident, as well as mortality. We used regression methods appropriate for censored cost data. RESULTS: Of the 4,696 patients, 8% were incident. Several diseases were associated with significantly higher and economically relevant cost changes, including atrial fibrillation (15% higher), coronary artery disease (14% higher), chronic lung disease (29% higher), depression (36% higher), diabetes (38% higher) and hyperlipidemia (21% higher). Some factors were associated with costs in a counterintuitive fashion (i.e. lower costs in the presence of the factor) including age, ejection fraction and anemia. But anemia and ejection fraction were also associated with a higher death rate. CONCLUSIONS: Close control of factors that are independently associated with higher cost or poor outcomes may be important for disease management. Analysis of costs in a disease like heart failure that has a high death rate underscores the need for economic methods to consider how mortality should best be considered in costing studies.

Integrating clinical trial findings into practice through risk stratification: the case of heart failure management.

Heart failure case management programs have been shown in clinical trials to be highly effective at preventing future hospitalizations. But the absolute benefits of these programs depend on the baseline risk of outcome in the treated population. Because baseline risks of hospitalization in trials are often higher than community-based samples, translating trial results to the community setting may be misleading. One solution is to identify subgroups for intervention that have sufficiently high baseline risk. Using estimates of hospitalizations averted from a previously published systematic review of heart failure management, we estimated a program's efficiency based on level of predicted risk. Medical history and demographic data on heart failure patients from a large integrated US health plan were used to build a logistic regression-based prognostic risk score for cardiovascular-related hospitalization over 1 year. We calculated the crude rate of hospitalizations for comparison with trial data. We also calculated the program's potential dollar savings from averting hospitalizations. The average risk of hospitalization in the systematic review's trials was 45%; our population's average observed risk was 18% and the risk among the highest risk patients was 33%. After accounting for the assumed annual intervention cost of $700, the base-case analysis (at $6000 per hospitalization) shows a savings of $122/patient at highest risk; failing to intervene according to predicted risk (no targeting) would actually cost $211/patient. Our findings illustrate how clinical trial findings can be efficiently integrated into community settings by using a prognostic risk score to focus attention on high-risk subgroups.

Common cardiovascular issues encountered in geriatric critical care.

The incidence and prevalence of CV disease is high in the growing US elderly population. It is common for CV disease to be either the primary or secondary problem for elderly patients receiving critical care. The therapeutic options for CV problems experienced in the critical care setting range from medical management with the goal of symptom relief and comfort care to invasive therapies such as PCI, intraaortic balloon pump therapy, invasive monitoring, and cardiac surgery. Age alone is not a contraindication for any of the invasive therapies. Instead, a careful risk-benefit analysis should be performed for each individual patient, taking into consideration physiologic age, comorbid conditions, other disabilities, and an assessment of quality of life. Additionally, the goals (symptom relief, improvement of quality of life, survival benefit) of any therapy should be clearly established for individual patients. End-of-life issues, cardiovascular surgery, and the disabling of ICDs deserve special consideration in the elderly, as these are often challenging issues that will likely be more frequently encountered in critical care settings as science and technology advance.

Familial cardiomyopathies: significant causes of heart failure.

Familial dilated cardiomyopathies (FDCMs) account for about one third of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathies, yet clinicians under-appreciate their prevalence. Among the inherited cardiomyopathies, FDCMs account for the greatest burden of heart failure and its associated morbidities. This paper summarizes significant molecular-genetic data, and discusses clinical manifestations of the major inherited cardiomyopathies, and the importance of clinical and genetic screening. Suggestions are provided as to how to proceed with screening. The purpose of this paper is to update clinicians about this rapidly growing scientific field, and to encourage application of current evidence to their practices.

Periodic rescreening is indicated for family members at risk of developing familial dilated cardiomyopathy.

OBJECTIVES: This study evaluated the role of clinical rescreening of family members at risk for familial dilated cardiomyopathy (FDC). BACKGROUND: Familial dilated cardiomyopathy is a genetic cardiomyopathy that usually is transmitted in an autosomal dominant pattern and may underlie from one-quarter to one-half of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDC) diagnoses. Thus, FDC may present with advanced heart failure (HF) or sudden cardiac death (SCD). Because FDC may respond to medical intervention, we have previously recommended that screening of first-degree relatives (parents, siblings, children) of patients diagnosed with IDC be undertaken to rule out FDC, and that with a diagnosis of FDC in the kindred, unaffected but at-risk family members be rescreened every three to five years. METHODS; Follow-up screening (history, examination, electrocardiogram, echocardiography) of a large family with FDC was performed six years after initial screening. Of 68 family members who underwent rescreening, two (one with left ventricular enlargement only, one with a left bundle branch block) presented with advanced HF and SCD, respectively. Two additional subjects, asymptomatic at initial screening, were also affected with FDC at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Considerable vigilance for disease presentation and progression is indicated in at-risk members of a kindred with FDC, especially those with incipient FDC.