The Heart Foundation strongly recommends that all Australians who experience a heart event are referred to and attend a cardiac rehabilitation program. Cardiac rehabilitation supports long-term lifestyle changes, improving patients’ quality of life and reducing hospital re-admissions.
Yet Australian rates of cardiac rehabilitation uptake are low: a recent study of 49,000 patients showed that only 30% of patients were referred to cardiac rehabilitation and of these only 28% attended¹. Healthcare professionals often play a critical role in patient participation in cardiac rehabilitation through advocating for and referring patients to local services.
Australian healthcare professionals also contribute to the continuous optimisation of our healthcare systems by sharing the evidence-base of the benefits of cardiac rehabilitation and promoting good practice in service delivery. This is vital to further develop and explore different models of cardiac rehabilitation.
To deliver a cardiac rehabilitation service with effective patient outcomes, health professionals must ensure they use evidence-based content and measure the impact of interventions.
The resource, A Pathway to Cardiac Recovery: Standardised program content for Phase II Cardiac Rehabilitation will guide cardiac rehabilitation service providers on the content to deliver face to face, via telehealth or mobile technology to achieve a high – quality, evidence-based program. View the Pathway to Phase II Cardiac Recovery, or download it here.
Ensure all eligible patients are being referred to cardiac rehabilitation or heart failure services.
The Heart Foundation and the Australian Cardiovascular Health and Rehabilitation Association have developed an infographic to advocate for and increase awareness of the importance of cardiac rehabilitation and its benefits to managers, administrators, stakeholders and patients.
View the cardiac rehabilitation infographic. Or to find out more, download the Advocacy and Communications Toolkit for Health Professionals for Health Professionals.
An effective advocacy strategy is to communicate personal patient stories. The Heart Foundation has created videos of cardiologists and patients sharing their opinions and experiences of cardiac rehabilitation. You can view these here:
The service level data collection of quality indicators contributes to regular monitoring and reporting of the quality and delivery of cardiac rehabilitation across Australia. The 10 quality indicators for cardiac rehabilitation support healthcare providers to:
To find out what data your program should be collecting, see the National Cardiac Rehabilitation Quality Indicators data dictionary and data collection spreadsheet.
Download
Download
To find out about the National Cardiac Rehabilitation Quality Indicator development process read Cardiac Rehabilitation Quality in Australia: Proposed National Indicators for Field Testing, or download it here.
Heart Failure patients benefit from cardiac rehabilitation and chronic disease management programs. Use this heart failure fact sheet to promote these programs to your heart failure clients.
To find out more, see the Heart Failure fact sheet, or download it here.
Participating in a cardiac rehabilitation program is a critical step in a person’s recovery from their heart attack or heart event. The Heart Foundation and the Australian Cardiovascular Health and Rehabilitation Association have developed a position statement about the ongoing role of telehealth in cardiac rehabilitation service delivery.
To find out more, see the Position Statement on telehealth and cardiac rehabilitation.
Cardiac rehabilitation helps your recovery after a heart procedure or the diagnosis of a heart condition. It also helps lower your chances of having heart problems in the future.
Cardiac rehab is proven to keep you out of hospital and reduce your risk of death from heart conditions.
Developed using current evidence from the Australian Clinical Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Atrial Fibrillation (2018).
Last updated10 March 2020