Abstract 12052: Breaking the Barriers in Heart Failure Care: Understanding Patient Referral Practices to Advanced Heart Failure Centers

BackgroundAdvanced Heart Failure (AHF) therapies improve survival in a growing population of Stage D HF patients. Successful implementation of these therapies is dependent upon timely and appropriate referrals to AHF centers. We evaluated patient referral patterns to identify barriers for successful delivery of AHF therapies and to develop methods to better serve the expanding HF population.Methods/ResultsWe performed a retrospective chart analysis of patients referred for and successfully completed an evaluation for AHF therapies at 5 centers (N=334). Data includeddemographics, clinical and referring physician characteristics and evaluation outcomes. The majority of referrals were Caucasian males (48%). At time of evaluation, 37% were INTERMACS profile 1-2 and 53% had an LVEF