Patient Care Pathways and Risk Assessments in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation: A Comparison of Asian versus Non-Asian Cohorts

Patient care pathways provide an integrated care approach to atrial fibrillation (AF) management. International guidelines propose various patient care pathways, each emphasizing different strategies for assessing stroke and bleeding risk. Due to different ethnicities and susceptibility to stroke or bleeding risk, caution should be taken during application of Western cohorts-derived patient care pathways to Asian cohorts. Evidence-based rather than eminence-based strategies should be adopted for AF patient care. In this clinical focus, we summarize and compare patient care pathways, using evidence on the implementation in real-world registries, and strategies for assessing stroke and bleeding risk across Asian and non-Asian guidelines.