Reducing Mortality and Hospitalization in Heart Failure: New Guidelines and New and Emerging Treatments for HFpEF and HFrEF

Target Audience

The primary target audiences for the HCP activity are Cardiologists, primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, and physicians

Statement of Need/Program Overview

Despite advances in heart failure (HF) treatment over the past decade, the disease is still associated with high costs and high rates of morbidity, hospitalization, and mortality. In 2021, an update to the 2017 ACC Expert Consensus Decision Pathway for Optimization of Heart Failure was published and yet the treatment course remains confusing for many clinicians. Research is also rapidly emerging on novel therapies for both HF with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), including anti-diabetic agents that have shown cardiovascular benefits.

In this program a panel of expert cardiologists will navigate these guideline-concordant treatment approaches to promote effective care of HF and optimization of pharmacotherapy. Panelists will review the latest updates to the treatment guidelines and the rationales for those changes, along with clinical trial data related to HFpEF and HFrEF. Clinicians will be prepared to address barriers to guideline-directed medical therapy in effort to reduce mortality rates and improve quality of life for their patients with HF.

Learning Objectives

After completing this activity, the participant should be better able to:

Explain the rational for important changes in the 2021 Update to the 2017 ACC Expert Consensus Decision Pathway for Optimization of Heart Failure Treatment
Identify HF patients who should receive ARNI/ACE/ARB as first line treatment, and those who should receive a SGLT2 inhibitors as part as therapy intensification newer HF agents with efficacy in reducing mortality and hospitalization rates in patients with HF
Describe the mechanisms of action of newly approved agents for the management of HF and how they relate to HF pathophysiology (ARNI and SGLT2 inhibitors)
Discuss recent clinical trial data from emerging agents that have demonstrated efficacy in the treatment of HFrEF and HFpEF