ArticleThe American journal of cardiology2017
Referral for Specialist Follow-up and Its Association With Post-discharge Mortality Among Patients With Systolic Heart Failure (from the National Heart Failure Audit for England and Wales).
Article in The American journal of cardiology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Treatment in Adolescence and Subsequent Risk of Nonaffective Psychosis: A Quasi-Experimental Study.Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica · 2026Article
- Predicted Mortality and Cardiology Follow-up Following Heart Failure Hospitalizations Among Veterans Health Administration Patients.Journal of cardiac failure · 2025Article
- The prognostic impact of specialist cardiology input in patients admitted for heart failure and normal ejection fraction.ESC heart failure · 2023Article
- Acute heart failure presentation, management, and outcomes in cancer patients: a national longitudinal study.European heart journal. Acute cardiovascular care · 2023Article
- Characteristics and management of very elderly patients with heart failure: a retrospective, population cohort study.ESC heart failure · 2023Article
- Patient profile and outcomes associated with follow-up in specialty vs. primary care in heart failure.ESC heart failure · 2022Article
- When and why US primary care providers do and do not refer their patients with new-onset seizures or existing epilepsy or seizure disorders to neurologists-2018 DocStyles.Epilepsy & behavior : E&B · 2021Article
- Factors Influencing Nonadherence to Recommended Postdischarge Follow-Up After Trauma.The Journal of surgical research · 2020Article
- Article
- Advanced heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center) · 2020Article
- Association of Levels of Specialized Care With Risk of Premature Mortality in Patients With Epilepsy.JAMA neurology · 2019Article
- Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Adverse Outcomes in Patients With Cardiovascular Disease.The American journal of cardiology · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 7 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
For patients admitted with worsening heart failure (HF), early follow-up after discharge is recommended. Whether outcomes can be improved when follow-up is done by cardiologists is uncertain. We aimed to determine the association between cardiology follow-up and risk of death for patients with HF discharged from hospital. Using data from the National Heart Failure Audit (England and Wales), we investigated the effect of referral to cardiology follow-up on 30-day and 1-year mortality in 68,772 patients with HF and a reduced left ventricular ejection fraction discharged from 185 hospitals from 2007 to 2013. The primary analyses used instrumental variable analysis complemented by hierarchical logistic and propensity-matched models. At the hospital level, rates of referral to cardiologists varied from 6% to 96%. The median odds ratio (OR) for referral to cardiologist was 2.3 (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.1 to 2.5), suggesting that, on average, the odds of a patient being referred for cardiologist follow-up after discharge differed ∼2.3 times from one randomly selected hospital to another one. Based on the proportion of patients (per region) referred for cardiology follow-up, referral for cardiology follow-up was associated with lower 30-day (OR 0.70; 95% CI 0.55 to 0.89) and 1-year mortality (OR 0.81; 95% CI 0.68 to 0.95) compared with no plans for cardiology follow-up (i.e., standard follow-up done by family doctors). Results from hierarchical logistic models and propensity-matched models were consistent (30-day mortality OR 0.66; 95% CI 0.61 to 0.72 and 0.66; 95% CI 0.58 to 0.76 for hierarchical and propensity matched models, respectively). For patients with HF and a reduced left ventricular ejection fraction admitted to hospital with worsening symptoms, referral to cardiology services for follow-up after discharge is strongly associated with reduced mortality, both early and late.
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