Why the study?
Despite established benefits, cardiac rehabilitation utilization remains low in older adults and Medicare beneficiaries due to multiple barriers, prompting a call for new strategies.
Alternative models of cardiac rehabilitation, including home-based and technology-driven approaches, are needed to overcome barriers and improve low utilization rates among older adults.
Ongoing low cardiac rehabilitation use in older adults requires alternative models; leaves open their effectiveness in routine care.
Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is an important component in the continuum of care for patients with cardiovascular diseases, including the older population. Benefits of CR which include mortality benefit, decreased hospitalizations, increased functional capacity all extend to an older population. In Medicare beneficiaries which represent an older population, utilization of CR continues to remain low despite evidence that suggests lower hospitalization rates, Medicare costs, and improved symptoms. Given poor referral rates, enrollment rates, and completion rates, a call for new strategies has been made by all major societies. However, several barriers exist. Newer models of CR constructed to overcome these barriers are reviewed below. Some of these new strategies include alternative site CR or home-based CR and the utilization of technology.
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Kumar et al. (2019) studied this question.
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