Equity in Heart Failure Care: A Get with the Guidelines Analysis of Between- and Within-Hospital Differences in Care by Sex, Race, Ethnicity, and Insurance

BACKGROUND: Disparities in guideline-based quality measures likely contribute to differences in heart failure (HF) outcomes. We evaluated between- and within-hospital differences in the quality of care across sex, race, ethnicity, and insurance for patients hospitalized for HF. METHODS: This retrospective analysis included patients hospitalized for HF across 596 hospitals in the Get With the Guidelines-HF registry between 2016 and 2021. We evaluated performance across 7 measures stratified by patient sex, race, ethnicity, and insurance. We evaluated differences in performance with and without adjustment for the treating hospital. We also measured variation in hospital-specific disparities. RESULTS: Among 685 227 patients, the median patient age was 72 (interquartile range, 61-82) and 47.2% were women. Measure performance was significantly lower (worse) for women compared with men for all 7 measures before adjustment. For 4 of 7 measures, there were no significant sex-related differences after patient-level adjustment. For 20 of 25 other comparisons, racial and ethnic minorities and Medicaid/uninsured patients had similar or higher (better) adjusted measure performance compared with White and Medicare/privately insured patients, respectively. Angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitor measure performance was significantly lower for Asian, Hispanic, and Medicaid/uninsured patients, and cardiac resynchronization therapy implant/prescription was lower among women and Black patients after hospital adjustment, indicating within-hospital differences. There was hospital-level variation in these differences. For cardiac resynchronization therapy implantation/prescription, 278 hospitals (46.6%) had ≥2% lower implant/prescription for Black versus White patients compared with 109 hospitals (18.3%) with the same or higher cardiac resynchronization therapy implantation/prescription for Black patients. CONCLUSIONS: HF quality measure performance was equitable for most measures. There were within-hospital differences in angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitor and cardiac resynchronization therapy implant/prescription for historically marginalized groups. The magnitude of hospital-specific disparities varied across hospitals.