Improve HF 24 Month Progress Report:
Improvement on Six of Seven Heart Failure Performance Measures

 

Results from the HealthSciences Institute-supported IMPROVE HF study (The Registry to Improve the Use of Evidence-Based Heart Failure Therapies in the Outpatient Setting) were announced at the Heart Failure Society meeting in late 2009. IMPROVE HF is the first of its kind, large-scale, prospective study involving approximately 35,000 heart failure patients from 167 U.S. cardiology practices. The IMPROVE HF process improvement program significantly improved the quality of care on six of seven American College of Cardiology (ACC) and America Heart Association (AHA) HF care measures at 24 months. HealthSciences Institute was responsible for the design and delivery of the practice performance improvement training, work sessions and implementation tools.

According to Dr. Gregg Fonarow, co-chair of the IMPROVE HF Scientific Steering Committee and Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles, “These compelling results serve as a call to action for the need to transform heart failure care delivery in the outpatient practice setting. By monitoring care and applying a practice-specific performance improvement system to better meet guideline recommendations, cardiology practices can markedly increase the quality of care for their heart failure patients.” Using a process improvement intervention and chart reviews at baseline, six, 12, 18 and 24 months, IMPROVE HF was designed to quantify and improve quality of care for heart failure patients by promoting the use of evidence-based, guideline-recommended therapies. Dr. Blake Andersen, President & CEO of HealthSciences Institute, added “Improve HF demonstrates that by partnering with physician practices to benchmark their performance, identify and implement targeted process improvement steps, and build critical chronic care improvement competencies, we can reduce avoidable heart failure mortality and hospitalizations. Improve HF was effective because is more prescriptive and proactively addressed critical implementation and change management barriers that are frequently not strategically managed in improvement studies of this type. The study demonstrates that improvement is not only possible, it can be sustained two-years out.”

 

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