DISEASE MANAGEMENT AND RESEARCH: A WINNING COMBINATION FOR IMPROVING HF CARE

Heart failure is a devastating disease that affects more than 5.7 million people in this country, with over 870,000 new cases diagnosed each year. Despite best efforts, more than one-third of patients with heart failure are re-hospitalized within weeks of hospital discharge. The focus of the morning Heart Failure Disease Management (HFDM) pre-conference is to learn key strategies to manage clinical HF exacerbations in the outpatient setting within a disease management program. The workshop will also discuss interventions to manage patients in the community setting, thus avoiding frequent hospitalizations.

The afternoon session of this full day workshop will focus on state-of-the-science heart failure research, presenting key studies to guide clinicians in novel methods to manage this chronic, but progressive disease. The workshop will also focus on the development of scholarly writing skills needed to guide the investigator to develop a high-impact research proposal and abstract, to achieve institutional review board approval (IRB), and gain funding needed to carry out research.

Learning Objectives

1. Discuss an innovative same-day access clinic to manage sub-acute HF exacerbations in an outpatient setting
2. Outline guidelines and strategies for utilizing short-stay observation units
3. List strategies to incorporate palliative care into a HF disease management program, taking HF care into the community
4. Identify key tactics to increase use of remote device diagnostic data in guiding outpatient HF care
5. Demonstrate the skills and knowledge needed to search the literature to identify key research outcomes to measure the impact of a HF Disease management program.
6. Discuss HF Disease Management through Community Family Partnerships, testing guided interventions among patients who utilize outpatient observation units, to improve patient satisfaction and avoid re-hospitalizations.
7. Discuss key strategies for developing an award winning abstract for presentation or publication.

 Wednesday, June 22, 2016