Cardiology day case unit: The way to manage chronic cardiovascular conditions cost-effectively in future

摘要

Editor - We read with great interest Banerjee et al's clinical practice paper (Clin Med April 2012 pp 133-6) on intravenous diuretic day-case treatment (DCIDT) for heart failure patients. DCIDT appears to be a very simple, innovative way to reduce the burden of hospital admissions in heart failure patients.It is clear that heart failure is a common condition and affects between 1 and 20 per 1,000 of the general population. The prevalence of heart failure is likely to increase in parallel with life expectancy due to the success of medical therapy for conditions such as myocardial infarction and hypertension. This trend is seen across the industrialised world. In this country, heart failure accounts for a total of 1 million inpatient bed-days (2% of all NHS inpatient bed-days) and 5% of all emergency medical admissions to hospital.