BACKGROUND/RATIONALE:
Quality of life measurements for patients with heart failure using the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire have been shown to predict future hospitalization and death. Use of quality of life instruments by physicians to standardize symptom assessment is recommended by guidelines. However, resources required to administer and score these surveys in the clinic are barriers to their use. Patient's may wish to obtain these measurements themselves if it were made available in a simple and inexpensive format

In addition to quality of life assessments, patients may be interested in assessing the quality of their care using current guidelines.

OBJECTIVE(S):
There are two objectives for this project. The first is to make a quality of life intstrumenet available to patients using My-HealtheVet (MHV). A second purpose is to make an algorithm available to patients that will allow them to assess the quality of their heart failure care.

METHODS:
The Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire will be made available on MHV including a scoring algorithm. An algorithm to assess quality of care will be made available for MyHealthE-vet. Use of the survey and algorithm will be tracked. We will determine the distribution of quality of life and quality of care for those willing to complete the surveys.

FINDINGS/RESULTS:
An algorithm has been created and is now online that allows patients to assess the quality of their heart failure care.

IMPACT:
Currently we are not capable of identifying patients as they enter data. Based on data from this pilot project we hope to eventually track results of individual patients over time and link data to their medical record.

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External Links for this Project

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PUBLICATIONS:

None at this time.

DRA: none
DRE: none
Keywords: Cardiovasc’r disease, Quality assessment
MeSH Terms: none