Which patients with heart failure respond best to multidisciplinary disease management?

Multidisciplinary disease management approaches have been shown to decrease resource use in selected samples of patients with heart failure. We remain uncertain regarding the effectiveness of this approach in a general heart failure population and who can be expected to benefit most. The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary disease management intervention in an unselected population of patients with heart failure and to determine if subgroups could be identified in which the intervention is most effective.

Two hundred forty patients with heart failure who were matched on preadmission functional status, comorbidity, and age participated in a quasi-experimental clinical trial. Half (n = 120) were given a multidisciplinary disease management intervention, whereas the other half (n = 120) received usual care. Data on acute care resource use were collected 3 and 6 months after enrollment. No intervention effect was seen in the primary analysis. When the data were analyzed by preadmission functional status (I to IV), acute care resource use was lower in the class II intervention patients. Class I intervention patients had a 288% increase in total costs and a 14-fold increase in heart failure costs. A model of predictor variables explained 17.2% of the variance in heart failure readmission at 3 months.

An intervention of this type and intensity is recommended primarily for functional class II heart failure patients. Increases in cost in class I patients may have resulted from improved access to care.