Association between performance measures and clinical outcomes in patients with heart failure in China: Results from the HERO study

BACKGROUND: There is great heterogeneity in the quality of care among hospitals in China, but studies on the performance measures and prognosis of patients with heart failure (HF) are still deficient. HYPOTHESIS: Performance measures have been used as a guideline to clinicans, however, the association between them and outcomes among HF patients in China remains unclear. METHODS: We analyzed 4497 patients with HF from the Heart Failure Registry of Patient Outcomes study. Performance measures were determined according to the guidelines, and the patients were divided into four groups based on a composite performance score. Multiple imputation and Cox proportional-hazard regression models were used to assess the association between the performance measures and clinical outcomes. RESULTS: Overall, only 12.5% of patients met the top 25% of the performance measures, whereas 33.5% of patients met the bottom 25% of the measures. A total of 992 (22.2%) patients died within 1 year, involving a larger proportion of patients who had met only the bottom 25% of the performance measures than had met the top 25% (27.0% vs. 16.3%, respectively). The patients who met the top 25% of the measures had a lower 1-year mortality rate (adjusted hazard ratio: 0.78, 95% confidence interval: 0.61-0.98). CONCLUSIONS: The association between performance measures and mortality appeared to follow a dose-response pattern with a larger degree of compliance with performance measures being associated with a lower mortality rate in patients with HF. Accordingly, the quality of care for patients with HF in China needs to be further improved.