Nearly 70,000 Americans die each year because they do not receive optimal therapy as called for in guidelines promoted by national health authorities, researchers said Monday. Physicians have been slow to implement many of the procedures called for in the guidelines, according to the first national study of adherence to the treatment goals, the team reported in the June edition of the American Heart Journal.
Dr. Gregg D. Fonarow of UCLA's Geffen School of Medicine and his colleagues studied six evidence-based therapies for heart failure, using data from clinical trials, in-patient and out-patient registries for heart failure patients, quality-of-care studies and other published sources. To read more about their findings, click here.
