Mitigate Treatment Burden in Heart Failure: Martha Gulati, MD

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Managing treatment and lifestyle challenges related to heart failure can be overwhelming for patients, but there are ways clinicians can help, said Martha Gulati, MD, MS, FACC, FAHA, FASPC, FESC, cardiologist at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Schmidt Heart Institute, professor of cardiology and associate director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center, and director of cardiovascular disease prevention.

While patients might feel overwhelmed with information after a new diagnosis, they may also feel like they don’t have all the information they need to take action, she added. The clinician’s job is to provide a setting of appropriate education, without overwhelming the patient, and using shared decision-making tools that allow the patient to have time to digest what they’re being told.

While clinicians focus on the 4 pillars of treatment, patients want to better understand how this all impacts their quality of life and what the cost will be. Sometimes this means bringing a patient back and giving them additional time.

“I think, unfortunately, a lot of the times, just prescriptions are written,” Gulati said. “They're handed to the patient without the educational side to it, and that does not make for a great physician-patient partnership.”

She stressed that patients are often thought of as being noncompliant to medications when they’re really overwhelmed, and they’ll be more likely to adhere when they are given time to ask questions and be educated better on the therapies prescribed to them.

For practices that are busy with limited or no free time available, it’s easier said than done to find time for a follow-up to answer questions and educate newly diagnosed patients after they’ve had time to digest the first round of information. However, Gulati stressed that it’s essential to make that time. “Having a system in place for newly diagnosed heart failure patients is so important,” she said.