Implementation of a politically initiated national clinical guideline for cardiac rehabilitation in hospitals and municipalities in Denmark

Hospitals reported improvement of both content and quality of CR services. Municipalities reported no change in content of services, and lower level of fulfilment of one quality aspect. The results suggest that the guideline had different impact in hospitals and municipalities and that the differences in content and quality of services between the two settings increased in the study period, thus contradicting the guideline´s aim of uniform, evidence-based content of CR services across settings.