Cardiac rehabilitation use among veterans with ischemic heart disease.

Cardiac Rehabilitation Use AmongVeterans With Ischemic Heart Disease Referral to exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is 1 of 9 performance measures for secondary prevention after hospitalization for myocardial infarction (MI), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and/or coronary artery bypass graft (CABG).1,2 Although CR programs significantly reduce morbidity and mortality in patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD),3 they are vastly underused among US Medicare beneficiaries.4 The use of CR programs in the Veterans Health Administration (VA) has not been described. Therefore, we sought to determine (1) the proportion of eligible veterans with IHD who participate in CR, (2) whether the presence of an on-site CR program is associated with greater participation, and (3) the characteristics of the CR participants.