Group Medical Visits in Heart Failure

The primary goal of this research project is to improve the health status and outcomes for patients treated for heart failure (HF) via a group clinic or shared medical appointment approach where education to patients, disease monitoring and medication titration occurs. Studies have found patient self-care behaviors in HF (e.g. medication/dietary non-compliance) and health system factors (e.g. care discoordination, limited access, lack of education to patients and caregivers) played an important role in patient's health status and hospitalization risk to the extent that 50% of the readmissions were judged to be possibly/probably preventable. To address patient and system factors based on the Chronic Care Model, redesign of care delivery, via SMA's, can be a good solution to provide patient with peer support, self-management education while also performing disease monitoring and medication management in a group environment. The investigators propose a randomized controlled trial to enroll patients within 12 weeks of discharge from a heart failure hospitalization and/or an outpatient encounter (clinic, emergent or urgent care) that required IV diuretic therapy, and randomized them to receive either SMA intervention either weekly or bi-weekly for 4 total sessions versus usual care for HF. The investigators will determine, at 180 days from randomization, whether HF patients who participate in HF-SMA, as compared to patients who receive usual care:

• Experience better cardiac health status measured by Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire and overall health status measured by EQ5D;
• Have fewer hospitalization or death and
• Experience improvement in a) HF Self-Care behavior, or b) plasma BNP or NT-pro-BNP levels.

The sites will be Providence VA, Cleveland VA and Phoenix VA hospitals to enroll a total of 250 patients. The study duration will be 180 days for all patients from the time of randomization. The investigators will use stratified randomization with the following variables: enrollment in other programs for HF Clinic, support group or education, <2 hospitalizations last 6 months, left ventricular ejection fraction <40% and study site. The team will consist of a nutritionist, social worker or health psychologist, a clinical pharmacist and/or nurse practitioner, without the presence of a physician (cardiologist will be available on call). The session will contain an assessment of patient needs, theme-based disease self-management education, patient-initiated disease management discussion, and break-out sessions of individualized medication case management.

Inclusion criteria

• All subjects >18 years old,
• within 12 weeks of discharge from a heart failure hospitalization and/or an outpatient encounter (clinic, emergent or urgent care) that required IV diuretic therapy
• able to participate in a group setting and
• able to sign informed consent, will be eligible for enrollment

Exclusion criteria

• Unable to attend the group sessions due to either psychiatric instability (acutely suicidal, psychotic) or organic brain injury (e.g., severe dementia, encephalopathy) that precludes self-reporting on health status
• Discharged to hospice or long-term nursing home facilities (as opposed to short-term rehab), or patients with a code status of comfort-measures-only
• Recipients of heart transplant or ventricular assist devices, patients receiving intravenous inotropic infusions for heart support, women who are pregnant, and patients with end-stage liver disease or renal disease on dialysis since these conditions would preclude them from standard HF care. All women of childbearing age will have a pregnancy test before study enrollment.