Diagnosis and treatment of heart failure in Māori and New Zealand Europeans at the Waikato Hospital
Richard Wall, Anita Bell, Gerard Devlin, Ross Lawrenson
This study reviewed the medical files of 69 New Zealand European and 71 Maori patients who had their first admission with heart failure to the Waikato Hospital during the period 1/1/2007 to 31/8/2008. International heart failure guidelines recommend that heart failure patients have an echocardiogram and treatment with beta blocker and ace inhibitor medications if they meet particular criteria. This study found that a high proportion of the patients who met criteria for these medications did receive beta blockers and ace inhibitors and the rate of echocardiogram use of 57% was similar to that seen in other studies of this type, both nationally and internationally. The number of people included in the study was too low to conclusively determine if the treatment rates differed between the two studied ethnic groups. However the Maori heart failure patients were found to be significantly younger than New Zealand European patients, and were more likely to have an additional diagnosis of diabetes.
