The American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association Task Force on Performance Measures have made two changes to performance measures for adults with atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter.
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The 2020 Update to the 2016 ACC/AHA Clinical Performance and Quality Measures for Adults With Atrial Fibrillation or Atrial Flutter was published online Dec. 7 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. It was developed in collaboration with the Heart Rhythm Society.
Both performance measure changes were prompted by, and are in accordance with, the 2019 ACC/AHA/Heart Rhythm Society atrial fibrillation guideline focused update issued in January 2019, and reported by this news organization at that time.
The first change is the clarification that valvular atrial fibrillation is atrial fibrillation with either moderate or severe mitral stenosis or a mechanical heart valve. This change is incorporated into all the performance measures.
The second change, which only applies to the performance measure of anticoagulation prescribed, is the separation of a male and female threshold for the CHA2DS2-VASc score.
This threshold is now a score higher than 1 for men and higher than 2 for women, further demonstrating that the risk for stroke differs for men and women with atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter, the ACC/AHA noted in a press release.
“Successful implementation of these updated performance measures by clinicians and healthcare organizations will lead to quality improvement for adult patients with atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter,” they said.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.