Digoxin And Hospital Readmission In Older Patients With Heart Failure And Reduced Ejection Fraction Receiving Beta Blockers: A Propensity Matched Study Of Medicare Linked Optimize Hf

Background: In patients with heart failure (HF), digoxin reduces the risk of 30-day all-cause readmission (PMCID: PMC3929967). In the current study, we examined if digoxin use is associated with lower 30-day all-cause readmission in hospitalized patients with HF and reduced EF (HFrEF) receiving beta-blockers (BBs). Methods: In the Medicare-linked OPTIMIZE-HF registry, of the 10625 hospitalized patients with HFrEF (EF ≤40%), 7601 received a discharge prescription for BBs. We restricted our analysis to an inception cohort of 5307 patients who were not receiving digoxin on admission. Of these, 1075 received a new discharge prescription for digoxin. Propensity scores for digoxin use, estimated for each of the 5307 patients, were used to assemble a cohort of 1043 pairs of patients, receiving and not receiving digoxin, balanced on 46 baseline characteristics. All results are based on 2086 matched patients who had a mean (±SD) age of 75 (±11) years and EF of 25 (±8) percent, 42% were women, and 13% African Ameri...