Background: Optimal management of heart failure (HF) patients is crucial to reduce both mortality and the number of hospital admissions, at the same time improving patients’ quality of life.

Aim: The aim of the study was to assess the quality of care of hospitalised patients with HF in Poland in 2013 and compare it with the results of a similar survey performed in 2005.

Methods: The presented study was conducted from April to November 2013 in a sample of 260 hospital wards in Poland, recruited by stratified proportional sampling. Similarly to the first study edition in 2005, a trained nurse contacted physicians, who filled out the study questionnaires on the last five patients with HF, who had been discharged from an internal or cardiological ward. HF did not have to be a major cause of hospital admission.

Results: The mean age of the 1300 hospitalised patients was 72.1 years, an increase of 2.3 years since the 2005 survey. The proportion of patients classified as New York Heart Association IV decreased from 28.5% in 2005 to 22.1% in 2013. In comparison with 2005, more patients had concomitant disorders such as hypertension (79.5% vs. 71.0%), diabetes (46.2% vs. 33.2%), and chronic renal failure (33.4% vs. 19.4%). Access to echocardiography has improved in recent years: it was available for 98.9% of the surveyed hospital wards (93% in 2005) and it was performed during the hospitalisation in 60.2% of the patients (58.8% in 2005). In 2013 N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide was accessible for 80.8% of hospital wards (12.8% in 2005) and the test was performed in 31.3% of the hospitalised patients (3.3% in 2005). Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI) or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB) were administered in 68.9% of HF discharged patients, beta-blockers in 84.8%, mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA) in 57.9%, diuretics in 85.9%, and digoxin in 23%. The respective numbers in 2005 were 85.9%, 76.0%, 65.4%, 88.9%, and 38.4%. The decrease in prescription of ACEI or ARB resulted from lesser usage of these drugs in internal medicine wards (from 84.3% in 2005 to 55.6% in 2013).

Conclusions: In comparison to the analogous project run in 2005, an improvement in some areas of HF treatment was observed in Polish hospitals, such as accessibility to echocardiography and natriuretic peptide measurement as well as beta-blocker and MRA use. At the same time, a meaningful decrease in ACEIs or ARBs usage in internal wards was observed, which might be the result of the ageing of the HF population and an increased number of comorbidities.