WCM-Q webinar addresses chronic heart failure management

The guidelines for managing patients with chronic heart failure were discussed at the latest instalment of Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar’s (WCM-Q) cardiology webinar series.

The series, titled ‘What Does the Non-Cardiologist Need to Know About Cardiology?’ is aimed at physicians, particularly those in primary care roles, who treat patients with common cardiac conditions in their clinics but who are not specialist cardiology consultants themselves. The series is presented by Dr. Islam Elgendy, assistant professor of medicine at WCM-Q, an interventional cardiologist and outcomes researcher.

Outlining the scope of the problem, Dr. Elgendy noted that more than six million people in the United States and more than 23 million worldwide have heart failure. There are approximately one million hospitalizations each year in the United States for heart failure and the risk increases with age, he said. Risk factors for heart failure are coronary heart disease, cigarette smoking, hypertension, low physical activity, being male, low educational attainment, being overweight, diabetes, and valvular heart disease, in that order.

Participants who joined the webinar learned how to summarize the guidelines for management of a range of common cardiac conditions in the outpatient setting. They also learned the indications of a number of common cardiac medications commonly prescribed by primary care physicians. In addition, the webinar featured a precis of the diagnosis and classification of different stages of heart failure and how to treat them. Dr. Elgendy then guided the participants through a detailed case study of a 68-year-old man with heart failure before concluding the session by taking questions from the audience.

The event was accredited locally by the Ministry of Public Health’s Department of Healthcare Professions – Accreditation Section and internationally by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).