Changes in heart failure outcomes after a province-wide change in health service provision a natural experiment in Alberta, Canada.

BACKGROUND: The Alberta Cardiac Access (ACA) initiative was implemented in the spring of 2008 to increase access to specialized heart failure (HF) clinics after hospital discharge. METHODS AND
RESULTS: We identified all adults hospitalized with a most responsible diagnosis of HF between April 1999 and December 2009. We randomly selected 1 episode of care per patient and evaluated outcomes using interrupted time series: the a priori specified primary outcome was all-cause readmission or death in the first 30 days postdischarge. Between 1999 and 2009, median length of stay increased from 8 days to 10 days (P<0.001), and 30-day mortality increased from 9.1% to 11.5% (P<0.001) in the 37891 HF hospitalizations we examined. However, these temporal changes were attributable to the increasing comorbidity burden over time: the adjusted Risk Ratio for 30-day mortality in 2009 versus 1999 was 0.99, 95% confidence interval, 0.86 to 1.15. After adjusting for secular trends, the ACA initiative was associated with changes in 30-day postdischarge mortality or readmission rates (which were increasing 0.3% per month [0.2%-0.3%] pre-ACA and decreased 1.4% per month [0.3%-2.5%] in the 18 months post-ACA; P=0.008). After roll out of the ACA initiative, patients discharged from vanguard regions (those that had specialized HF clinics) exhibited lower 30-day postdischarge death/readmission rates than those discharged from other areas of the province (18.6% versus 22.2%, adjusted odds ratio 0.83, 95% confidence interval, 0.75-0.93).
CONCLUSIONS: An initiative which increased specialized HF clinic access was associated with a statistically significant improvement in 30-day postdischarge mortality/readmission rates.