VIDEO: Dhruv Kazi, MD, MSc, MS, highlights importance of underutilized cardiac rehab
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PHILADELPHIA — In this Healio video exclusive, Dhruv S. Kazi, MD, MSc, MS, discusses the importance of cardiac rehabilitation, noting that a comprehensive program is “more than just supervised exercise.”
Beyond supervised physical activity, cardiac rehab also includes many other tools, such as psychosocial support, guidance on weight loss and nutrition, medication adherence support and, if necessary, smoking cessation support, Kazi, associate director of the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology, director of the cardiac critical care unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, said at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.
“We have decades of data showing cardiac rehab for select patients can improve health and even increase survival,” Kazi said. “You would think that everyone receives cardiac rehab; yet, we know the data does not support that. No more than one in three patients in the U.S. gets cardiac rehab.”
Kazi is advocating for federal legislation currently making its way through the U.S. House and Senate that would restore virtual cardiac rehab as a covered benefit under Medicare, after hospital-based virtual cardiac rehab programs shut down when the COVID-19 public health emergency ended in May.
Watch the video for more.
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