Heart Failure

There are few conditions that will test the hospitalist as often, or with higher stakes, than heart failure. It drives more hospitalizations and readmissions than almost any other condition and the guidance around its treatment and proper management is continually evolving.

The complexity of the heart failure syndrome necessitates comprehensive management frameworks that extend beyond acute congestion management to address the persistent challenge of recurrent hospitalizations and progressive functional decline.¹

The 2024 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) Focused Update on Heart Failure Quality of Care establishes contemporary performance benchmarks that emphasize medication optimization, structured discharge protocols, and post-discharge surveillance as foundational quality indicators.²

In response to the updated guidelines, the Society of Hospital Medicine has developed an implementation guide and a supplemental suite of resources to help integrate current research and recommendations on heart failure into the hospitalist’s everyday clinical practice. These resources outline best practices which include initiation and titration of guideline-directed medical therapy in the hospital, the common comorbidities that complicate it, and the discharge and transition steps that determine whether the treatment plan holds once the patient leaves.

Learning Materials include:

• Implementation Guide
• Comprehensive Diagnostic Checklist (expanded and condensed)
• Non-Ischemic Heart Failure Work-Up Checklist (expanded and condensed)
• Management and Discharge Readiness Checklist (expanded and condensed)
• Expanded Protocols
  • Schema 1: Admission Assessment & Risk Stratification
  • Schema 2: Acute Management & GDMT Initiation
  • Schema 3: Daily Monitoring & Decongestion Assessment
  • Schema 4: Discharge Planning & Transition of Care
• Patient Education Resource