Heart Failure in Ethnic Minorities

The RightSTEPS initiative: Continuing education impact on clinicians' optimal medical therapy practices for chronic heart failure

PURPOSE

Despite the existence of expert recommendations that can improve morbidity and mortality, reduce the need for hospitalization or readmission, and enhance quality of life in patients with heart failure (HF), many patients do not receive optimal medical therapy (OMT). The goal of this initiative, titled RightSTEPS, was to help physicians take the right steps to apply-evidence-based HF management strategies in clinical practice.

METHODS

Using the PRECEDE-PROCEED Model aimed at improving the clinical behavior of the learner, the instructional design featured 23 online and live face-to-face activities offering up to 16 credit hours of CME/CNE credit. These activities were delivered sequentially in three phases: predisposing, enabling and reinforcing. The lessons provided concise, pragmatic, stepwise management strategies aimed at empowering clinicians to prescribe evidence-based, guideline-directed OMT for patients with HF.

RESULTS

The predisposing and reinforcing online activities within the initiative reached a total of 71,510 learners with 23,902 successfully completed activities and post-tests; the enabling face-to-face activities reached a total audience of 763 clinicians. This initiative resulted in a statistically significant (p < 0.0001) increase in knowledge and competence related to HF OMT among the clinician learners. Furthermore, follow-up surveys indicated a commitment from learners to implement these guideline-directed strategies in their clinical practice.

CONCLUSIONS

This initiative demonstrated that the design of the RightSTEPS curriculum, using the Precede-Proceed model with sequentially-delivered, blended learning, provides a methodological framework to help learners translate knowledge into improvements in clinical behavior with the potential to improve patient health outcomes.

Prognosis of Low Normal Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction in an Asymptomatic Population-Based Adult Cohort: The Multiethnic Study of Atherosclerosis

BACKGROUND

Reduced left ventricular systolic function predicts worse outcomes. However, the optimal threshold for "normal" left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) is uncertain. In general, LVEF ≥ 55% is considered to be "normal" by guidelines, with a low normal designation for LVEF being 50%-55%. We assessed the prognosis of participants with low normal LVEF in the Multiethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. All participants were asymptomatic and had no known clinical cardiovascular disease at baseline.

METHODS AND RESULTS

A total of 4926 out of 6814 had LVEF assessed with the use of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), had no significant valvular disease, did not have myocardial infarction during follow-up, had complete data, and were included in this analysis. A total of 83/4926 (1.7%) had LVEF < 50% (low LVEF) and 101/4926 (2.1%) had low normal LVEF. Cox proportional hazard and cubic spline analyses were used to evaluate the association between LVEF category and 10 years of adjudicated incident congestive heart failure (CHF) and all-cause mortality adjusting for (model 1) age, sex, and race and (model 2) model 1 and diabetes mellitus, smoking, systolic blood pressure (BP), BP medications, body mass index, estimated glomerular filtration rate, low-density lipoprotein, family history of coronary heart disease, educational status, and LV mass. Mean age was 61 ± 10 years, 47% were men, 35% were on BP medications, 9% had diabetes. After 10.2 years of follow-up, 109 (2.2%) had CHF and 427 (8.7%) died. Compared with normal LVEF (≥55%), low normal LVEF and low LVEF were associated with an increased risk for incident CHF during follow-up in our multivariable Cox models: hazard ratios (HRs) 3.64 (95% CI 1.76-7.52) and 9.52 (5.63-17.52), respectively. Unlike low LVEF, low normal LVEF was not associated with increased risk of death compared with normal LVEF in our fully adjusted models: HRs 3.03 (1.94-4.73) and 1.32 (0.72-2.41), respectively. In the adjusted spline analysis HR of LVEF 55% as reference, LVEF had a U-shape association of future CHF risk and LVEF.

CONCLUSION

Low normal LVEF is as prevalent as low LVEF in asymptomatic community-dwelling adults. We observed a gradient-response association between the 3 categories of LVEF (low, low normal, and normal) and incident CHF but not for all-cause death.