Cardiac rehab.

[xoggyux]

Hello guys.
My hospital does not seem to have options for my discharged patients to go to "cardiac" (or pulmonary for that matter) rehab. I was wondering, what are the differences between "cardiac rehab" and "regular rehab" and what steps can I take if my hospital does not have an implementation for this so I can offer my patients the best care I can.
Thank you in advance.

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[aafisahar]

Cardiac rehab usually has an NP and nurses monitoring vitals and rhythm during exercise. It also helps keep patients honest and makes them push their exercise tolerance. To qualify for cardiac rehab, you need recent a MI, chronic CHF, angina, etc.

If your hospital doesn't have cardiac rehab, chances are other systems will, I would refer out if they qualify.

 

[xoggyux]

Is there some sort of standardization and/or certification that they need to have to offer such services? When I do a search online I find a few places that claim to have it, it seems to me it couldn't be too hard to have this information given to our CM and try to implement it.

 

[ROBINHO]

You should refer your patients to other rehabs in your city.
My hospital has a cardiac rehab but only half of the patient attend. Patients generally will go to cardiac rehab CLOSEST to their hours. The sessions can be 3-5x a week and no patient wants to drive a long distance for cardiac rehab.

Yes there are standards to setting up a cardiac rehab. If a patient codes, you need an emergency response plan in place and medical emergency evacuation plan. You need people trained in stress testing or exercise training, need an intake nurse. Need a medical director of the cardiac rehab ( no specific training for this) but you need to block off time so that they are available for emergencies in the rehab. And obviously the hospital needs to get all the equipment's.

Some hospitals dont buy into it because there are no direct money making advantages. But in actual fact a lot of indirect money can be made. You will need to put together a business proposal to convince them. The money making are the indirect costs- patients sometimes need low level stress test prior to rehab, echocardiogram can be linked to rehab, referral to nutritionist. All the MI and HF patients on discharge can be kept within your institution by offering such a service. But you need to put the numbers together to convince admin.

Some programs do virtual cardiac rehab.