title: [Cardiac rehabilitation deserves higher priority].
abstract: A report from the Dutch Health Inspectorate states that both the participation rates and the quality of Dutch cardiac rehabilitation programs are inadequate. Therefore health care professionals, hospitals and health care insurers should give cardiac rehabilitation a higher priority. An elementary requirement to increase cardiac rehabilitation uptake is the availability of sufficient financial resources. In addition, more research is needed to unravel the causal mechanisms of non-attendance in subgroups with low cardiac rehabilitation uptake rates, such as women and elderly patients. Given the uncertainty about a realistic target value, evaluating cardiac rehabilitation centres on cardiac rehabilitation uptake rate does not seem meaningful at this stage.
authors.affiliation: Máxima Medisch Centrum, afd. Cardiologie, Veldhoven, the Netherlands. h.kemps@mmc.nl
authors.forename: Hareld M C
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Kemps
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000191:economics* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D020380:Needs Assessment; D012737:Sex Factors