Heart Failure Overview
Heart failure is a chronic condition in which the heart’s pumping function is unable to meet the body’s needs. With the progressive weakening of heart function that occurs in heart failure, deterioration in quality of life also occurs. Many patients experience limitations in activity, fatigue and increasingly severe shortness of breath. Hospitalizations are frequent (1 million each year) and readmission rates are as high as 20 to 30% within 30 days of discharge. Despite advances in treatment, the prognosis for patients with heart failure is poor: 50% of patients die within 5 years of diagnosis.
Human Burden of Heart Failure in United States
- 5 million Americans have heart failure.
- 500,000 new cases of heart failure are diagnosed each year.
- 300,000 heart failure patients die every year.
- 60 million individuals in the U.S. are at high-risk to develop heart failure each year, including people over the age of 65, patients who have had a heart attack and patients with uncontrolled hypertension.
Economic Burden of Heart Failure
- 1 million hospitalizations per year; 30 to 60% of hospitalized patients are readmitted within 3 to 6 months.
- Heart failure is the leading cause of hospitalizations in Medicare patients.
- An estimated $38 billion is spent annually in direct and indirect costs for heart failure in the U.S.
Source: American Heart Association
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