Current status of heart failure treatment Heart failure (heart failure) is the final stage in the development of various cardiovascular diseases and has become a major public health problem worldwide. For Europe as a whole, it is estimated that symptomatic heart failure patients account for 0.4%-2% of the total population, and the prevalence of chronic heart failure in our country is 0.9%, which, although lower than in developed countries, still represents a huge public health economic burden for our country. Because of the huge population burden, the rapid aging of the population and the 130 million people with hypertension in China, these patients still have low awareness, low treatment and low compliance rates. Hao Enkui, Department of Cardiology, Shandong Qianfo Mountain Hospital In the past 10 years, China’s medical insurance system has gradually improved, with urban workers’ medical insurance becoming popular in 2003, urban residents’ medical insurance being promoted in 2007 and pilot projects gradually expanded, and new cooperative medical care in rural areas from 2010 to 2012 bringing the vast rural population into medical coverage. The above measures have led to a rapid increase in the number of patients hospitalized for heart failure. According to the standards of developed countries, with high rates of heart failure knowledge, diagnosis and treatment, the amount of heart failure inpatients corresponds to the same amount of asymptomatic heart failure patients; in China, the current number of inpatients corresponds to 1.5-2.0 times more asymptomatic heart failure patients and some symptomatic heart failure patients who are in no condition to seek medical treatment. Another important factor is that in the United States and the European Union, the incidence of hypertension and myocardial infarction, the most important causes of heart failure, has passed its peak and is slowly declining, while in China the above diseases are in a period of high incidence and rise corresponding to rapid economic development, followed by a period of geometrically high incidence of heart failure accompanying an aging society. We are now in the beginning years of this period. Even if the incidence of myocardial infarction and hypertension also peaks in our country, the onset of the peak due to the development of symptomatic heart failure in these patients will continue for at least 5-10 years. The major problem corresponding to the increase in the number of patients is the high cost of treatment. Heart failure has become a major public health problem in the United States. Heart failure accounts for 12-15 million visits and 6.5 million total hospital days each year in the U.S. The direct or indirect cost of heart failure in 2004 was estimated at$27.9 billion. In the United States, approximately$2.9 billion is needed annually for the pharmacological treatment of heart failure. The cost of heart failure treatment in China is also staggering. According to the statistics of 13 tertiary hospitals in Beijing from 2007 to 2009, the average hospitalization days for heart failure patients were 15.41 days and the average hospitalization cost was 19,830.17 yuan; for a large tertiary hospital in Jinan, the average hospitalization days for heart failure patients were 12.67 days and the average hospitalization cost was 13,362 yuan; China’s heart failure population is 0.9 percent of the 1.3 billion population. China’s heart failure population is 11.7 million people according to 0.9% of the 1.3 billion population, each hospitalization is calculated by 10,000 yuan, the total cost of the above patients due to the onset of hospitalization is 117,000,000,000 yuan, that is, 117 billion yuan. And persistent heart failure will be hospitalized many times a year, we count the average number of hospitalization for new heart failure patients covered by medical insurance within 5 years after their first admission is 3.2 times, according to this ratio the annual cost of hospitalization for heart failure patients is about 75 billion yuan. This is a huge pressure on our health insurance system. According to the statistics of a large hospital in Jinan, during the off-season from April to October, the number of inpatients with primary and secondary diagnosis of heart failure in the cardiology department is about 40%, and during the busy season from November to March, the number of inpatients with primary and secondary diagnosis of heart failure in the cardiology department is about 50%, and there is a backlog of patients who are not admitted to the emergency observation room during the busy season every year, which will further increase with the improvement of the health insurance system coverage. This is a pressure on the health insurance system. The Ministry of Health of China has also identified this problem, and in 2007, the Ministry of Health took the lead in launching six single disease control categories, and heart failure was ranked second. The number of hospitalizations and the cost of treatment for heart failure can be expected to increase year by year in the coming years. Therefore, for patients (those who already have heart failure symptoms and potential heart failure patients), the following recommendations are available: 1. Find a stable and familiar cardiologist (heart failure treatment specialist) to keep an eye on the changes of heart structure and function throughout the whole process and to guide the related treatment and cardiac rehabilitation; 2. Have regular cardiac ultrasound to know if the heart is enlarged and developing, once every 3-6 months, preferably with the same cardiac ultrasonographer; 3, Regular BNP (B-type natriuretic peptide) testing is recommended for patients with an enlarged heart to prevent symptomatic heart failure attacks or recurrences.