Disparities in the characteristics and outcomes of patients hospitalized with acute decompensated heart failure admitted to internal medicine and cardiology departments: a single‐centre, retrospective cohort study

Aims Efforts are constantly made to decrease the rates of readmission after acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF). ADHF admissions to internal medicine departments (IMD) were previously associated with higher risk for readmission compared with those admitted to cardiology departments (CD). It is unknown if the earlier still applies after recent advancement in care over the last decade. This contemporary cohort compares characteristics and outcomes of ADHF patients admitted to IMD with those admitted to CD. Methods and results The data for this single‐centre, retrospective study utilized a cohort of 8332 ADHF patients admitted between 2007 and 2017. We compared patients' baseline characteristics and clinical and laboratory indices of patients admitted to CD and IMD with the outcome defined as 30 day readmission rate. In comparison with those admitted to CD, patients admitted to IMD (89.5% of patients) were older (79 [70–86] vs. 69 [60–78] years; P