Home-based intervention in congestive heart failure: long-term implications on readmission and survival

It is not known to what extent initially observed benefits of postdischarge programs of care for patients with chronic congestive heart failure (CHF) in respect to event-free survival, readmissions, and healthcare costs persist in the long term. Methods and Results- We prospectively studied the long-term effects of a multidisciplinary home-based intervention (HBI) in a cohort of CHF patients randomly allocated to either to HBI (n=149) or usual care (n=148). During a median of 4.2 years of follow-up, there were significantly fewer primary end points (unplanned readmission or death) in the HBI versus usual care group: a mean of 0.21 versus 0.37 primary events per patient per month (P<0.01). Median event-free survival was more prolonged in the HBI than usual care group (7 versus 3 months; P<0.01). Fewer HBI patients died (56% versus 65%; P=0.06) and had more prolonged survival (a median of 40 versus 22 months; P<0.05) compared with usual care. Assignment to HBI was both an independent predictor of event-free survival (RR 0.70; P<0.01) and survival alone (RR 0.72; P<0.05). Overall, HBI patients had 78 fewer unplanned readmissions compared with usual care (0.17 versus 0.29 readmissions per patient per month; P<0.05). The median cost of these readmissions was $A325 versus $A660/month per HBI and usual care patient (P<0.01).

The beneficial effects of HBI in reducing frequency of unplanned readmissions in CHF patients persist in the long term and are associated with prolongation of survival.