Evaluation of Outpatient Cardiac Rehabilitation in Austrian Outpatient Facilities.

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is a multidisciplinary therapeutic intervention aimed at regaining and maintaining long-term professional and social integration. Specialist societies classify cardiac rehabilitation with the highest recommendation level (Class I). The focal points of therapy in cardiac rehabilitation include health education, optimization of risk factors through psycho-social counseling and structured physical training.

The four-tier Austrian model of cardiac rehabilitation consists of phase I, which takes place in the acute care hospital directly after a cardiac event or intervention/surgery. Phase II ideally follows immediately and lasts 3-4 weeks as an inpatient or alternatively 6 weeks as an outpatient CR. In the subsequent phase III patients ideally transfer knowledge and skills gained during rehabilitation into their daily lives. Supervised outpatient training is carried out once or twice a week for 6 months and takes part in psycho-social and physical health training courses. This is followed by a 3-6 months lasting "home phase" in which patients to follow the agreed-on lifestyle changes on their own, while documenting successes and problems. After this home phase, the Austrian model provides a "refresher" consisting of two guided outpatient training sessions as well as psychological consultation and a medical examination including a stress test. The refresher must be completed within a maximum of four weeks and is a unique feature of the Austrian model, aiming to achieve sustainable lifestyle modification. The patient-financed and life-long phase IV begins no later than 18 months after the start of phase II. Its aim is to achieve an improvement in the prognosis through lifelong, autonomous and self-responsible behavior and long-term prevention.

The aim of this retrospective analysis is to pool data from preferably all Austrian outpatient rehabilitation facilities and to analyze the efficacy of the Austrian cardiac rehabilitation model with a special focus on phase III.