How to increase medication adherence in patients with heart failure and those with left ventricular systolic dysfunction after myocardial infarction.

Despite recent advances in therapeutic management of patients with heart failure and those who have had a myocardial infarction, prognosis remains poor once a patient has been hospitalized. On the basis of a 44-year follow-up of the Framingham Heart Study of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the mortality rate is almost 80% at 8 years after diagnosis of heart failure.1 Among approximately 18 000 Medicare recipients who were hospitalized with heart failure, 44% were readmitted within 6 months.2 Outcomes after myocardial infarction are no more optimistic: 11% to 32% of patients with new or recurrent myocardial infarction die within 1 year, 14% to 32% of patients experience reinfarction within 5 years, and 1% to 6% experience sudden death.1 Patients at high risk after myocardial infarction,...

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