Heart failure clinics
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Heart failure clinics · Oct 2015
ReviewCharacteristics of Intensive Care in Patients Hospitalized for Heart Failure in Europe.
Patients hospitalized for acute heart failure (AHF) may clinically decompensate and experience life-threatening complications. Regional differences in intensive care unit (ICU) admission rates have been reported by European registries. ⋯ ICU triage decision requires cautious clinical judgment to balance between clinical benefit of ICU care and associated risk and cost. In Europe, despite large variations in treatment practices, in-hospital mortality of AHF patients managed in ICUs is similar, suggesting that high-risk characteristics of AHF patients admitted to ICUs, rather than geographic variation in intensity of therapies, may be the principal determinant of prognosis.