Do critical pathways improve outcomes of patients with cardiac failure?

Cardiac failure represents an important public health problem and despite recent clinical, diagnostic and therapeutic advances, the incidence and prevalence of this syndrome show a steady increase. In view of this, the authors conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the effect of critical pathways in the management of patients with cardiac failure when compared with standard care. The impact of critical pathways on the following outcomes were evaluated: hospital mortality, mortality at six months, mean length of hospital stay, direct costs, readmission rates at one, three and six months. Methods: The following databases were consulted: Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. The research was limited to articles published between January 1975 and June 2010. Methodological quality of studies was evaluated by the Jadad method (for RCTs, cRCT, CCT) and the New Castle Ottawa Scale for case-control and cohort studies. Data analysis was performed by using the statistical methods described in the Cochrane Collaboration guidelines. Meta-analyses were performed using RevMan software version 5. Results: Eleven studies were included in the meta-analysis (5,460 patients). A lower mortality (hospital mortality and mortality at 6 months) was observed in the critical pathways group compared to the group treated with standard care. A positive impact of critical pathways was also observed in length of stay, direct costs, readmission after one, three and six months. Conclusions: Critical pathways can improve the quality of care provided to patients with cardiac failure. Further studies are needed to evaluate which mechanisms within the care pathways can truly improve the quality of care.