The Taiwan Heart Registries: Its Influence on Cardiovascular Patient Care

Taiwanese heart registries for the main cardiovascular diseases have been conducted in the past 10 years, with the goal of examining the quality of cardiovascular patient care, which cannot be guaranteed by the universal Taiwan National Health Insurance. The results show suboptimal adherence to guideline recommendations. Door-to-balloon time and dual antiplatelet therapy use in acute coronary syndrome, standard medications for management of heart failure, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in dyslipidemia, anticoagulant agent use in atrial fibrillation, and the understanding of sudden arrhythmia death syndrome were all found to be inadequate. However, all were improved, either by changing National Health Insurance policy or through continuous education for physicians and patients. Thus, specific cardiovascular disease registries could help examine the status of real-world practice, find inadequacies in guideline implementation and understanding of rare diseases, facilitate lobbying to policy makers and education for physicians and patients, and influence and improve cardiovascular patient care.