Attendance at cardiac rehabilitation programs: an audit

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Investigators:
Ms Rosemary Higgins, Dr Marian Worcester, Dr Barbara Murphy, Dr Alan Goble, Dr Peter Elliott, Mr Michael Le Grande, Ms Anne Parkinson, Heart Research Centre.
 
This study also provided us with the opportunity to investigate patients' participation in cardiac rehabilitation programs. We found that almost three quarters of the patients in our study attended a rehabilitation program, an exceptional rate of attendance. Findings of the study were reported this year in the Medical Journal of Australia. The high participation rate was largely attributed to the Royal Melbourne Hospital's adoption of simple improvements to their referral practices, which are based on procedures recommended in the Heart Research Centre's Best Practice Guidelines for Cardiac Rehabilitation and Secondary Prevention.

According to the paper's first author, Ms Rosemary Higgins: "The targeted referral strategies routinely employed by the cardiothoracic surgical unit ensured a very high attendance rate among patients in the study". Other audits within Australia indicate that only 30% to 50% of patients attend such programs after coronary artery bypass graft surgery. 

 
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