The Revolving Door of Heart Failure Hospitalization
TUESDAY, Nov. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Almost a quarter of the people on Medicare who are hospitalized for heart failure are back in the hospital within a month of discharge, a new study reveals.
That should not be happening, said Dr. Joseph S. Ross, an assistant professor of geriatrics and palliative medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, who added that there's plenty of blame to go around. Ross was lead author of the study, published online Nov. 10 in Circulation: Heart Failure.
"It's not just an issue for physicians," Ross said. "The whole clinical team, nurses, pharmacists, even patients play a role. If we want to do better, everyone has to get in the game together."
Heart failure, which is the progressive loss of the heart's ability to pump blood, affects an estimated 5.7 million people in the United States, with 670,000 new cases diagnosed every year, and is one of the more common reasons for hospitalization, according to the American Heart Association.
Hospitalization affords the chance to get treatment for heart failure properly organized, Ross said.
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