Overview

This Meeting on Demand™ Program is designed to enable practitioners to balance appropriate investigative clinical tests and clinical acumen in the management of the complex acute decompensated heart failure (HF) patient.  Many neurohormonal cascades are affected in the congestive heart failure (CHF) patient. This program will address the following questions: Are the premises of therapy the same for all patients, or does HF benefit from an individualized therapy approach? Are the effects of therapy similar in all patients? Are there better options that are effective in every CHF patient?

Biomarker assessment is useful, but is not the only valuable tool in risk assessment. Less may be more, but that theory has not yet been tested in HF patients.

Click the Start Program button to begin learning about the state-of-the-art management of systolic heart failure.

Target Audience

• Cardiologists and cardiology fellows
• Primary care physicians 

Important Dates

Date of Release: September 2011

Term of Approval/Date of CME Expiration: September 2012

Learner Objectives

Upon completion of this activity, the learner should be able to:

• Evaluate the proper usage of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) in an effort to better initiate early and effective treatment of volume overload HF. 
• Describe how to use the BNP laboratory data to better guide ongoing diuretic therapy in HF.
• Explain whether the laboratory test BNP leads to better management and improvement in quality of life for patients with recurrent CHF.

Method of Participation and Claiming Credit

ACCF Meeting on Demand™ Programs feature captured lecture content, abstract summaries, and self-assessment questions. To be eligible for credit, you must attain a score of 70% or better on the self-assessment exams included in the activity.

Requesting AMA PRA Category 1 CME Credit™ for this Activity
To request credit, you must:

1. Read all text and view all slide and video presentations in the modules for which you wish to receive credit.
2. Answer the Self-Assessment questions in each module for which you wish to claim credit. After you have answered all the questions in the module, click on the Exam Summary button. A Claim Credit button will appear on this page if you have achieved a passing score of 70% or better. If you did not achieve a passing score, please click the Reset Scores link and retake the exam.
3. Click the Claim Credit button and answer the evaluation questions in the pop-up window.
4. Enter the total amount of time you actually spent in the activity in the box provided. Please note that you may only claim once for each module in this activity. Click Submit.
5. You will receive a message that your request has been submitted and a link to view your certificate. You may view and download the certificate when you receive the message, you may also view it at any time in the My Transcript section of My CardioSource.