***TASK*** the task is to summarize an input biomedical literature in six sentences 
    ***INPUT*** the input is a biomedical literature 
    ***OUTPUT*** the output is the summary of an input biomedical literature in six sentences 
    ***DOCUMENTATION*** 
    ***EXAMPLES*** 
    Input: BACKGROUND Heart failure , a condition predominantly affecting the elderly , represents an ever-increasing clinical and financial burden for the NHS . Cardiac rehabilitation , a service that incorporates patient education , exercise training and lifestyle modification , requires further evaluation in heart failure management . AIM The aim of this study was to determine whether a cardiac rehabilitation programme improved on the outcomes of an outpatient heart failure clinic ( st and ard care ) for patients , over 60 years of age , with chronic heart failure . METHODS Two hundred patients ( 60 - 89 years , 66 % male ) with New York Heart Association ( NYHA ) II or III heart failure confirmed by echocardiography were r and omised . Both st and ard care and experimental groups attended clinic with a cardiologist and specialist nurse every 8 weeks . Interventions included exercise prescription , education , dietetics , occupational therapy and psychosocial counselling . The main outcome measures were functional status ( NYHA , 6-min walk ) , health-related quality of life ( MLHF and EuroQol ) and hospital admissions . RESULTS There were significant improvements in MLHF and EuroQol scores , NYHA classification and 6-min walking distance ( meters ) at 24 weeks between the groups ( p<0.001 ) . The experimental group had fewer admissions ( 11 vs. 33 , p<0.01 ) and spent fewer days in hospital ( 41 vs. 187 , p<0.001 ) . CONCLUSIONS Cardiac rehabilitation , already widely established in the UK , offers an effective model of care for older patients with heart failure IN THE EARLY 1890S , DR WILLIAM HALSTED DEVELOPED radical mastectomy for breast cancer . Surgeons performed the Halsted procedure for more than 80 years even though there was little systematic evidence for its success . Then a new breed of scholars subjected the procedure to formal methods of evaluation unknown to Halsted . The methods —r and omized controlled trials ( RCTs ) principal among them — led to a surprise : radical mastectomy had no advantage over simpler forms of treatment . This is but 1 example of the hard-won victory of evidence over belief in medicine . The pioneers of the formal evaluation of medical practice s raised questions that traditional practitioners did not welcome . But in time , formal evaluation prevailed . The pioneers developed a hierarchy of evidentiary rigor relating the design of a study to the confidence that could be placed in the findings , from the lowly , nearly valueless anecdote to the royalty of evidence , the RCT . Concurrently , a similar story of hard-won learning unfolded in the so-called quality movement . Scholars illuminated the scale and types of defects in the processes of care and the outcomes , including high rates of unscientific care , inappropriate care , geographic variations in practice , latent disagreements among specialists , and oftenunrecognized medical injury to patients . Like the pioneers of evidence -based medicine , students of medical quality were at first largely ignored , but no longer . In 1999 and 2001 , the Institute of Medicine published 2 l and mark reports on the evidence for quality failures and called urgently for re design of care systems to achieve improvements . The story could end here happily with 2 great streams of endeavor merging into a framework for conjoint action : improving clinical evidence and improving the process of care . Instead , the 2 endeavors are often in unhappy tension . Neither disputes that progress toward health care ’s main goal , the relief of illness and pain , requires research of many kinds : basic , clinical , systems , epidemiologic . The disagreement centers on epistemology — ways to get at “ truth ” and how those ways should vary depending on the knowledge sought . Individuals most involved in day-to-day improvement work fear that if “ evidence ” is too narrowly defined and the approach to gathering evidence too severely constrained , progress may be the victim . For example , the RCT is a powerful , perhaps unequaled , research design to explore the efficacy of conceptually neat components of clinical practice —tests , drugs , and procedures . For other crucially important learning purpose s , however , it serves less well . Recent controversies about the evaluation of rapid response  teams  provide a case in point . These controversies show the importance of adjusting research methods to fit research questions . Although only 10 % to 15 % of in patients resuscitated outside intensive care units survive to hospital discharge , early warning signs are present in a large percentage of patients who ultimately experience cardiac arrest .  Rapid response team systems bring expert clinicians to the bedsides of deteriorating patients before arrest occurs . In the mid 1990s , based largely on reports from Australian investigators , the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and others began introducing the concept to willing hospitals . Local experience strongly suggested that these systems often , although not always , were associated with improved outcomes , including reduced anxiety among nursing staff ; increased interdisciplinary teamwork ; decreased cardiac arrests outside of intensive care units ; and , in some cases , declines in mortality . The evidence base took a turn in June 2005 with the publication of the Medical Early Response Intervention and Therapy ( MERIT ) Study , a cluster r and omized prospect i ve trial that cl aim ed to find no beneficial effect of these teams on several primary outcomes . Controversy has continued since then regarding the scientific evidence for rapid response systems . In fact , the MERIT trial was not negative ; it was inconclusive . The study team encountered an array of serious problems in execution , common in social science . For example , although the study ’s power calculation assumed a baseline rate of 30 events per 1000 admissions , the actual rate proved to be fewer than 7 events per 1000 admissions ; thus , the study was ef fect ively underpowered by 500 % . Crosscontamination abounded ; some control hospitals implemented rapid response protocol s , and several study Background . The growing number of patients with congestive heart failure has increased both the pressure on hospital re sources and the need for community management of the condition . Improving hospital-to-home transition for this population is a logical step in responding to current practice guidelines ’ recommendations for coordination and education . Positive outcomes have been reported from trials evaluating multiple interventions , enhanced hospital discharge , and follow-up through the addition of a case management role . The question remains if similar gains could be achieved working with usual hospital and community nurses . Methods . A 12-week , prospect i ve , r and omized controlled trial was conducted of the effect of transitional care on health-related quality of life ( disease-specific and generic measures ) , rates of readmission , and emergency room use .  The nurse-led intervention focused on the transition from hospital-to-home and supportive care for self-management 2 weeks after hospital discharge . Results . At 6 weeks after hospital discharge , the overall Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Question naire ( MLHFQ ) score was better among the Transitional Care patients ( 27.2 ± 19.1 SD ) than among the Usual Care patients ( 37.5 ± 20.3 SD;P = 0.002 ) . Similar results were found at 12 weeks postdischarge for the overall MLHFQ and at 6- and 12-weeks postdischarge for the MLHFQ ’s Physical Dimension and Emotional Dimension subscales . Differences in generic quality life , as assessed by the SF-36 Physical component , Mental Component , and General Health subscales , were not significantly different between the Transition and Usual Care groups . At 12 weeks postdischarge , 31 % of the Usual Care patients had been readmitted compared with 23 % of the Transitional Care patients ( P = 0.26 ) , and 46 % of the Usual Care group visited the emergency department compared with 29 % in the Transitional Care group ( & khgr;2 = 4.86 , df 1 , P = 0.03 ) . Conclusions . There were significant improvements in health-related quality of life ( HRQL ) associated with Transitional Care and less use of emergency rooms BACKGROUND We examined the effect of a home-based intervention ( HBI ) on readmission and death among " high-risk " patients with congestive heart failure discharged home from acute hospital care . METHODS Hospitalized patients with congestive heart failure and impaired systolic function , intolerance to exercise , and a history of 1 or more hospital admissions for acute heart failure were r and omized to either usual care ( n=48 ) or HBI at 1 week after discharge ( n=49 ) .  Home-based intervention comprised a single home visit ( by a nurse and pharmacist ) to optimize medication management , identify early clinical deterioration , and intensify medical follow-up and caregiver vigilance as appropriate . The primary end point of the study was frequency of unplanned readmissions plus out-of-hospital deaths within 6 months of discharge . Secondary end points included duration of hospital stay and overall mortality . RESULTS During follow-up , patients in the HBI group had fewer unplanned readmissions ( 36 vs 63 ; P=.03 ) and fewer out-of-hospital deaths ( 1 vs 5 ; P=.11 ) : 0.8+/-0.9 vs 1.4+/-1.8 ( mean + /- SD ) events per patient assigned to HBI and usual care , respectively ( P=.03 ) . Patients in the HBI group also had fewer days of hospitalization ( 261 vs 452 ; P=.05 ) and fewer total deaths ( 6 vs 12 ; P=.11 ) . Patients assigned to usual care were more likely to experience 3 or more readmissions for acute heart failure ( P=.02 ) . Predictors of unplanned readmission were ( 1 ) 14 days or more of unplanned readmission during the 6 months before study entry ( odds ratio [ OR ] , 5.2 ; 95 % confidence interval [ CI ] , 1.8 - 16.2 ) , ( 2 ) previous admission for acute myocardial ischemia ( OR , 3.3 ; 95 % CI , 1.2 - 9.1 ) , and ( 3 ) an albumin plasma concentration of 38 g/L or less ( OR , 2.4 ; 95 % CI , 1.2 - 6.0 ) . Home-based intervention was also associated with a trend toward reduced risk of unplanned readmission ( OR , 0.4 ; 95 % CI , 0.2 - 1.1 ) . CONCLUSION Among a cohort of high-risk patients with congestive heart failure , HBI was associated with reduced frequency of unplanned readmissions plus out-of-hospital deaths within 6 months of discharge from the hospital Despite efforts to improve the discharge planning process and subsequent outcomes , existing mechanisms fail to accurately identify elders ' needs for follow-up care . Studies report rehospitalization rates ranging from 12 to 50 % . The two aims of this study were to ( 1 ) examine the difference in outcomes for elders hospitalized with heart failure and caregivers who participated in a professional-patient partnership model of discharge planning  compared to those who received the usual discharge planning  and ( 2 ) examine differences in costs associated with hospital readmission and use of the emergency room following hospital discharge . A before- and -after nonequivalent control group design was used for this study . Data were collected from the control and the intervention cohorts before discharge and at 2 weeks and 2 months postdischarge . One hundred and fifty-eight patient-caregiver dyads completed both the predischarge and 2-weeks postdischarge interviews ; 140 also completed a 2-month follow up . The average age of elders was 73.7 years ; the average age of the caregivers was 58.5 years . The findings indicated that elders in the intervention cohort felt more prepared to manage care , reported more continuity of information about care management and services , felt they were in better health , and when readmitted spent fewer days in the hospital than the control cohort . Caregivers in the intervention cohort also reported receiving more information about care management and having a more positive reaction to caregiving 2 weeks postdischarge than the control cohort AIMS To determine the effect of an integrated heart failure management programme , involving patient and family , primary and secondary care , on quality of life and death or hospital readmissions in patients with chronic heart failure . METHODS AND RESULTS This trial was a cluster r and omized , controlled trial of integrated primary / secondary care compared with usual care for patients with heart failure . The intervention involved clinical review at a hospital-based heart failure clinic early after discharge , individual and group education sessions , a personal diary to record medication and body weight , information booklets and regular clinical follow-up alternating between the general practitioner and heart failure clinic . Follow-up was for 12 months . One hundred and ninety-seven patients admitted to Auckl and Hospital with an episode of heart failure were enrolled in the study . There was no significant difference between the intervention and control groups for the combined end-point of death or hospital readmission . The physical dimension of quality of life showed a greater improvement in the intervention group from baseline to 12 months compared with the control group ( -11.1 vs -5.8 respectively , 2 P=0.015 ) . The main effect of the intervention was attributable to the prevention of multiple admissions ( 56 intervention group vs 95 control group , 2 P=0.015 ) and associated reduction in bed days . CONCLUSIONS This integrated management programme for patients with chronic heart failure  improved quality of life and reduced total hospital admissions and total bed days BACKGROUND Despite the availability of proven therapies , outcomes in patients with heart failure ( HF ) remain poor . In this 2-stage , multicenter trial , we evaluated the effect of a disease management program on clinical and economic outcomes in patients with HF . METHODS AND RESULTS In Stage 1 , a pharmacist or nurse assessed each patient and made recommendations to the physician to add or adjust angiotensin-converting enzyme ( ACE ) inhibitors and other HF medications . Before discharge ( Stage 2 ) , patients were r and omized to a patient support program ( PSP ) ( education about HF , self-monitoring , adherence aids , newsletters , tele 
    Output:
    
We could not explain the considerable differences in hospitalization and quality of life across the studies .
Chronic care management significantly reduces mortality .
Positive effects on hospitalization and quality of life were shown , however , with substantial heterogeneity in effectiveness .
This heterogeneity is not explained by study quality , length of follow-up , or the number of chronic care model components .