Focus Area: Systems Change

Change concept, change idea, tools and resources.

Systems change strategies are ways to establish foundations for effective cardiac rehabilitation (CR) utilization efforts and are likely the best place on which to focus initial quality improvement (QI) efforts. These include identifying a champion to provide leadership on focused QI efforts and making CR utilization a priority.

Note: Change concepts are general notions that are useful in the development of more specific ideas for changes that lead to improvement. Change ideas are actionable, specific ideas or strategies for changing a process. Each change idea lists evidence- or practice-based tools and resources that can be adapted by or adopted in a health care setting to improve CR utilization.

Systems Change: Change Concept

Change Idea:
Establish a hospital champion, such as a quality of care leader or a CR administrator

Tools & Resources:

Lake Regional Health System—Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation: Presentation for Board of Trustees [PPT – 2.78M]
Liverpool Hospital—Clinical Champions PowerPoint [PDF – 470K]
AACVPR—Vital Conversations with Medical Teams & Hospital Administrators About Cardiac Rehabilitation Services Delivering Value-Based Care: Lower Cost, Higher Quality, Great Value! [PPT – 1.95M]
Million Hearts^®—Getting to 70% Cardiac Rehabilitation Participation: Action Steps for Hospitals [PPT – 838K]

Change Idea:
Engage the care team in CR and ensure their buy-in in CR

Tools & Resources:

AACVPR—Vital Conversations with Medical Teams & Hospital Administrators About Cardiac Rehabilitation Services Delivering Value Based Care: Lower Cost, Higher Quality, Great Value! [PPT – 1.95M]
Lake Regional Health System—Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation: Update to Department Managers [PPT – 2.77M]
Million Hearts^®—Cardiac Rehabilitation infographic [PDF – 484K]

Change Idea:
Use CR referral, enrollment, and participation as quality of care indicators

Tools & Resources:

Thomas RJ, et al. 2018.¹⁹ 2018 ACC/AHA Clinical Performance and Quality Measure for Cardiac Rehabilitation
AACVPR Cardiac Rehabilitation Systems Change Strategy—Using Cardiac Rehabilitation Referral Performance Measures in a Quality Improvement System [PDF – 364K]
AACVPR—Sample Performance Measures Letter for Physicians and Providers [Word – 50K]

Bold font indicates CR programs that contributed content.

Note: References for citations on this page can be found under Additional Resources and References.

Additional Focus Areas

Learn more about the other Cardiac Rehabilitation Change Package (CRCP) focus areas:

Page last reviewed: October 24, 2019

Content source: Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention