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

Healthcare providers who prescribe and routinely manage heart failure medications. This includes healthcare providers* (with prescribing privileges eg physicians, APP, PharmD) who manage patients with heart failure:

*ABIM certified heart failure cardiologists will already have mastery of this content. 

• Physicians (general cardiologists, hospitalists, and family practice physicians/internists who treat patients with heart failure but were not heart failure specialists)
• Nurse practitioners (NPs) who manage patients with HF
• Physician assistants (PAs) who manage patients with HF
• It also includes non-prescribing health care professionals who are involved in medical management of heart failure, such as clinical pharmacists, nurses, or case managers.

Although several classes of medication have been shown in randomized clinical trials to improve outcomes in HF, many patients do not receive these medications, or receive them at lower than optimal doses. This program focuses on optimized medical therapy (OMT) for HF, which can be understood as optimal utilization and dosing of these evidence-based treatments. Our focus in this program is HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF); however, HF with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is also discussed.

To build your knowledge of OMT for HF, this self-guided, online program includes the following components:

• Introduction to the Program and OMT
• Module 1: Available Medical Therapy for Heart Failure
• Module 2: Managing OMT to Target Doses
• Module 3: Management Across the Care Continuum

After completing this program, you will have a current understanding of evidence-based therapies for HF, limitations and challenges in their utilization, and principles for uptitration to target or best-tolerated doses.

After fully reviewing the self-study introduction and modules, you will be able to access and take the certificate test on HFSA’s Learning Center. Upon successful completion of the test, you will receive a certificate confirmation. 

3.0 credits of CE are available. After reviewing the three OMT education modules, you can take the post-module surveys to easily claim your credits. 

CE is available to both new purchasers of the course, and to those who have already completed the program and exam prior to 2023. 

For those who have already completed the course and exam, in order to claim it, simply log into in the HFSA Learning Center under the account you used to purchase the OMT program. Revisit the OMT modules in your account, and click through each of them to the end to trigger the post-module surveys for each module. You will need to expand all sections of the modules as you did on first review of them, however you will NOT need to take the test. A certificate of CE can be downloaded once you complete the surveys.

CPE credits are the responsibility of HFSA to report within 60 days of completion of the course.

Download the OMT-HF Participant Manual for full program information, requirements, and policies.

This program uses the term optimized medical therapy (OMT) to describe optimal utilization and dosing of evidence-based therapies for heart failure (HF). In this context, OMT includes therapies recommended in key US treatment guidelines (often referred to as guideline-directed management and therapy or GDMT), as well as newer evidence-based therapies not yet reflected in major US guidelines for HF.

Current treatment guidelines jointly published by the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the American Heart Association (AHA), and the Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA) recommend that appropriate patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) [defined as left ventricular ejection fraction <40%] receive the following medications:

• An agent that inhibits the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAS) inhibitor:
• Angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitor (ARNI), OR
• Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI), OR
• Angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB)
• An evidence-based beta-blocker
• A mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA)
• A sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitor (SGLT2I)

These therapies are typically administered in addition to a diuretic in patients with signs and/or symptoms of congestion.

For some patients, the addition of ivabradine, digoxin, and/or an isosorbide dinitrate + hydralazine combination may also be appropriate.

Whenever possible, these therapies should be administered at target doses for HF. Target doses are determined from clinical trials; however, we acknowledge that the maximal dose tolerated for each patient is individualized.

In the program's introduction, we will present the context and rationale for this program, and focus on OMT for heart failure.