Heart failure means the patient’s heart is not able to pump enough blood to meet his /her body's needs. It is a chronic and potentially debilitating illness. It is a common cardiac problem. Effective evidence based therapies for heart failure have been developing since the 1980s. Disease management strategies for heart failure have been developed since mid 1990s.
The CGH heart failure programme was developed and implemented since 2006 to bring the latest evidence based therapies, and applying best practices in disease management to benefit our patients. It consists of in-patient and out-patient programmes. We have a dedicated multi-disciplinary team of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dieticians, physical and occupational therapists. We apply a multi-disciplinary and multi-modality treatment strategy with emphasis on patient co-operation and patient education to achieve better clinical outcome and patient satisfaction.
Our clinical outcomes in this programme have been good. Median length of stay is comparable to the best US centres. The mortality rates are below international contemporaries.
The CGH AMI and heart failure programmes were certified by JCI in 2007-the first disease specific programs to achieve this outside USA, and we were re-certified in 2010. The CGH AMI and heart failure programs are the only JCI certified disease specific programs in Singapore.
1 Gheorghiade M, et a;International Working Group on Acute Heart Failure Syndromes. Acute heart failure syndromes: current state and framework for future research. Circulation. 2005 Dec 20;112(25):3958-68
1 Finlay A. McAlister et al; A Systematic Review of Randomized Trials of Disease Management Programs in Heart Failure. AmJ Med. 2001;110:378 –384.