Nurse-led delivery care models may have the potential to address the significant burden of heart failure in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a study published Feb. 25 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Lauren A. Eberly, MD, et al., describe the first medium-term survival outcomes from the district level in rural sub-Saharan Africa based on their 10-year experience providing care in rural Rwanda. Kaplan-Meier methods were used to determine median time to event for: 1) composite event of known death from any cause, lost to follow-up or transfer to estimate worst-case mortality; and 2) known death only. Results showed that five-year event-free rates were 41.7 percent for the composite outcome and 64.3 percent for known death. "Efforts to better track patients and limit loss to follow-up, along with ongoing monitoring and evaluation, will be important as this program is implemented at a larger scale," the authors conclude. Read more.