Kevin A. Courville
Prevail Heart Clinics, USA
Title: Utilizing Computer Assisted Medication Management to Improve Outpatient Treatment of Heart Failure and Reduce Heart Failure Hospitalizations
Biography
Biography: Kevin A. Courville
Abstract
Optimal outpatient management of patients with chronic heart failure requires implementation and execution of evidence-based therapies, careful monitoring of clinical status, adequate patient education, adherence to patient's self-directed goals and readily available access to knowledgeable healthcare providers and/or heart failure specialists. These initiatives have the burden of a significant time and resource requirement. The ratio of the exponential increase in the number of patients with heart failure versus specialty heart failure providers are forcing patients to receive care from providers who do not have a primary focus on the treatment of heart failure nor the time or resources to "keep up" with all aspects of care required of each patient. PULSARIO Remote Heart Management system integrates these objectives with provider education and computer assisted medication titration into a single unified solution which enables the non-heart failure specialists to treat heart failure patients to the level of specialty care. Prevail Heart Clinics (PHC) evaluated 394 consecutive patients from October 2014 thru May of 2016. Patients were enrolled into the Prevail solution using the Pulsario system and treated as per goals directed by the Pulsario system and the Prevail team. The result was an all-cause 30-day readmission rate of only 6.1% and a 71.4% reduction of HF hospitalizations during the first year of application of this technology into a rural clinic with predominant care provided by a physician assistant. Computer assisted medication management in the Pulsario system is feasible, cost effective, clinically effective and improves the lives of patients with heart failure.