Abstract: Heart failure in Australia is increasingly becoming prevalent, and a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in older adults. Despite this, the accuracy of heart failure reporting and management of the older population is not clear.
Aim: To investigate the reporting and clinical management of heart failure in older adults admitted to acute geriatric setting using Western Sydney Clinical Frailty Registry data.
Method: The first 200 patients of the Western Sydney Clinical Frailty Registry were used for the study. Their heart profile data was analysed using a case ascertainment checklist. The reporting of those with ‘clinically diagnosed heart Failure’ (i.e. documented heart failure in the medical records) was compared to those that had echocardiogram diagnosed heart failure.
Result: Amongst the 200 participants: mean age was 81 years; 19 (10%) had ‘clinically diagnosed heart failure’. Amongst these 19 (10%) patients, only 4 had Echocardiogram done. There were additional 16 (8%) cases of echocardiogram diagnosed heart failure. In total, 35 participants (17.5%) had either clinically or echocardiogram-diagnosed heart failure. Regarding the management, 43% (n=86) were on an Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor (ACE) or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB), 34% (n=68) were on a beta blocker and 27% (n=53) were on a loop diuretic.
Conclusion: Heart failure is under reported in an acute inpatient hospital setting, likely due to the infrequent use of diagnostic tools. The result from this study emphasises the use of diagnostic services to diagnose heart failure and reveals the infrequent usage of therapeutic guidelines in heart failure management.