Bridging the gap between heart failure and the device clinic

ABSTRACT

Introduction: While cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is a mainstay in the management of selected patients with chronic systolic dysfunction, many patients are noted to experience less than expected or no benefit at all from the therapy. Multidisciplinary care has been shown to provide benefit in follow up for patients receiving CRT devices.

Areas covered: This review will focus on the apparent reasons behind less than optimal outcomes following CRT as well as multidisciplinary approaches to treating patients with CRT devices. The literature review focused mainly on the data behind multidisciplinary care of CRT patients.

Expert commentary: A multidisciplinary approach incorporating input from various cardiology backgrounds is an important strategy in ensuring optimal outcomes in patients receiving CRT devices. Breaking down the ‘silo’ effect amongst cardiac subspecialties is vital in achieving high level multidisciplinary care.

KEYWORDS:

• Cardiac resynchronization therapy
• multidisciplinary clinic
• optimization

Declaration of interest

J. Rickard has received minor consulting fees from Medtronic and minor speaking fees from Boston Scientific. B.L. Wilkoff has received major research fees from Spectranetics, Medtronic and St. Jude Medical. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.