What’s the best way to manage patients with heart failure?

By 2030, it’s estimated that one in 33 people will suffer from heart failure. The direct medical cost of heart failure over a patient’s lifetime is about $110,000, according to Christopher Bianco, DO, and Akshay Desai, MD, MPH.

Primary care physicians are in a key position to partner with patients to treat this condition. A primary care physician, not a cardiologist, performs 58% of heart failure outpatient clinic visits. These physicians are also responsible for the majority of visits for diseases commonly associated with heart failure, such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity.

Dr. Bianco and Dr. Desai present an osteopathic CME course that covers strategies for patient adherence to heart failure treatments, pharmaceutical options and adverse effects, and how the DO tenets of care align with the treatment of heart failure.

Nearly half of all patients who are hospitalized with heart failure are readmitted within six months of discharge. Adherence to prescribed medications and recommended lifestyle changes is low. Effective interventions were most likely to be delivered face to face and come from multidisciplinary teams.

This CME should take about an hour to complete. Participants who successfully complete the evaluation and the post-test will receive one Category 1-B CME credit.

Educational objectives

After completing this CME course, participants should be able to:

• Describe the recently published guideline updates for emerging therapies in heart failure, including results from pivotal trials.
• Characterize clinical scenarios for the appropriate prescribing of emerging heart failure therapies.
• Outline the key components of self-care and explain the role they play in improved outcomes.
• Employ strategies to improve compliance and outcomes in patients with heart failure.
• Characterize the importance of addressing non-cardiac comorbidities and overseeing care transitions to maintain therapeutic persistence and improve outcomes.
• Develop collaborative strategies for heart failure management, enlisting the support of a multidisciplinary team of health care providers.

Enroll in the course here.

Additional reading

AOA may have ACCME accreditation by end of year

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