Exceptional CHF program is built on best practices, benchmarks

Advocate Health Care in Oak Brook, IL, has built an exceptionally successful congestive heart failure (CHF) program based on best practices. Advocate's 90-day readmission rate for CHF patients is half the national average. A new part of the program, transitional care, has a readmission rate of just 4%. It is based on telephone follow-up and ongoing patient education. Advocate managers are building an internal database for their program, which will allow emergency department staff to access patients' latest labs, EKGs, blood serums, and other information.