Clinical & Experimental Cardiology
Open Access
ISSN: 2155-9880
+44 1300 500008
ISSN: 2155-9880
+44 1300 500008
Paul B Barrentine and Heather M Luckenbaugh
Belmont University, USA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Clin Exp Cardiolog
Background: Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States today. Hospitalizations are common among patients with coronary heart disease and it is important to reduce hospital readmissions due to the hospital readmission reduction program imposed by the centers for medicare and medicaid. Cardiac rehabilitation has been shown to reduce hospital readmission rates for adults with coronary heart disease however it is widely underutilized despite its known benefits. Objective: The purpose of this integrative review is to discover if the utilization of cardiac rehabilitation decreases hospital readmission rates among adult patients and to identify if there is an indication for a change in current practice. Methods: This integrative review was conducted using CINAHL, Medline, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. The search included articles published between 2006 and 2016. 27 articles resulted from our search. Five articles met our criteria and answered our research question. The five articles were examined and graded based on level of evidence and strength. Results: Cardiac rehabilitation was shown to have a statistically significant effect on decreasing hospital readmission rates among all 5 articles. Discussion: Cardiac rehabilitation is effective at reducing hospital readmission rates among adult patients with coronary heart disease, however results were modest. Gaps in research included a lack of randomized controlled trials conducted within the last five years, and a lack of female participants and those greater than 65 years of age. Due to new CMS reimbursement guidelines, more evidence is needed to support the benefit of cardiac rehabilitation on reducing hospital readmission rates in patients with coronary heart disease.
Paul Barrentine is a registered nurse in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a current family nurse practitioner student at Belmont University in Nashville, TN.
Email: brent.barrentine@pop.belmont.edu
Heather Luckenbaugh is a cardiac registered nurse at Vanderbilt University Medical Center specializing in nuclear stress testing and a current family nurse practitioner student at Belmont University in Nashville, TN