RESUMEN
OBJECTIVES: In 2013, the French National Health Insurance set up a programme to help patients with heart failure to return home and stay there (PRADO). During a hospitalization for cardiac decompensation, the medical team decides on the inclusion of the patient in the programme based on eligibility criteria defined. The objective of this study was to identify the factors most associated with the inclusion of heart failure patients in the PRADO program. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a monocentric retrospective analytical stratified case-control study. It focused on the analysis of patient records hospitalized for cardiac decompensation between 01/01/2017 and 31/12/2018 in the cardiology department of the Centre Hospitalier de Troyes. For each patient included in the PRADO Heart Failure programme, one or two controls, not included in the PRADO Heart Failure programme were matched. The matching was exact without discounting. It was performed on the following criteria: age in 10-year increments, sex, main diagnosis of the stay, major category of diagnosis of the stay and its type (medical or surgical), the severity score of the Homogeneous Group of Patients of the stay and the Charlson score. RESULTS: A total of 40 patients included in PRADO Heart Failure were matched to 56 controls not included in PRADO Heart Failure. Patients with respiratory disease (3.77 [1.07 - 13.29]), as well as patients on renin-angiotensin system inhibitors (2.24 [1.61 - 5.31]) were more often included in the PRADO Heart Failure programme. The most frequent criteria for non-eligibility were the need to transfer the patient to a specialised institution and significant impairment of higher functions. CONCLUSION: Respiratory comorbidity and renin-angiotensin system blocker treatment are the factors most associated with the inclusion of heart failure patients in the PRADO Heart Failure programme.
