To Members of the Heart Failure Society of America:

One of my favorite things about HFSA is its focus on providing education, leadership and networking opportunities for all members of the multidisciplinary heart failure team. HFSA is the home for healthcare providers specializing in heart failure. 

When thinking about the entire heart failure team, it’s important to include the professionals who treat patients living with heart failure but do not have advanced training in the field. These team members have a desire to improve patient outcomes but may need additional support to broaden their knowledge of heart failure.

Guideline-directed medical therapy (GDMT) is critical to patient success and currently HFSA has two programs that assist these team members in improving their knowledge of implementing GDMT.

Optimal Medical Therapy in HF (OMT-HF) Certificate Program 

The OMT-HF Certificate Program is a self-guided, online program that provides information on best practices for implementing new evidence-based therapies and medications according to major heart failure guidelines. This is ideal for the members of your institution’s teams who prescribe and optimize medications for heart failure patients before the patients are referred to a specialist. I ask that you share this program with your team leaders. Information is available here.

Heart Failure Seminar: Focus on Guideline-Directed Medical Therapy 

Complimenting the OMT-HF Certificate Program is the Heart Failure Seminar: Focus on GDMT, which is now available OnDemand. As with OMT-HF Certificate Program, this seminar provides practitioners with the latest information on GDMT and strategies to optimize medical therapies – all with updates from the universal definition of heart failure. More information is available online here. 

These two programs can do wonders for patient care and are very affordable options for your institutions and your colleagues. HFSA is working to ensure that GDMT and the optimization of medications are concepts known and implemented by all healthcare professionals who treat a patient living with heart failure. This well-rounded approach will improve patient outcomes. 

John Teerlink, MD, FHFSA
HFSA President 2022-2023