Disease management impact in hospital re-admission in older patients with heart failure

The aim was to systematically evaluate the published evidence regarding the effectiveness of disease management programmes (DMPs) reducing hospital re-admissions among elderly patients with heart failure (HF).

Conclusion: DMPs are effective at reducing re-admissions among elderly patients with HF. Their effectiveness is close to that observed in clinical trials evaluating drugs for HF, such as angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, beta-blockers or digoxin. However, since none of the DMP studies compared different interventions directly, we do not know the relative effectiveness of types of healthcare delivery within the DMP.