Hospice & Palliative Care

Speaker: Michael Mencias, MD, FAAHPM
Senior Hospice Medical Director
MJHS Hospice and Palliative Care
New York, NY

Purpose: This webinar will provide updates on palliative care delivery in congestive heart failure (CHF) patients. Clinicians should be able to diagnose CHF using signs and symptoms and appropriate laboratory testing and imaging. They will become aware of the latest treatment recommendations, emphasizing the difference in treatments between heart failure with REDUCED ejection fraction vs PRESERVED ejection fraction. Clinicians will review the different prognostication tools available for CHF and the dynamic changes to a patient’s condition that make prognosis difficult. Finally, they will recognize the need for palliative care services early in the illness and how to overcome barriers to care.

Objectives:  

1. Define CHF, discuss its etiology and how to diagnose it using clinical signs and symptoms, imaging, and laboratory testing.
2. Review the updated CHF guidelines and the difference in treatments between heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) and preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF).
3. Review the different prognostication tools for CHF.
4. Discuss the barriers hindering heart failure care, the lack thereof, and the importance of early palliative care referral and integration in CHF patients.

Continuing Education Credits: 1.0

Continuing Education Accreditation

Physicians: The AAFP has reviewed MJHS 2024-2025 Interprofessional Webinar Series-Enduring, and deemed it acceptable for AAFP credit. Term of approval is from 09/26/2024 to 09/25/2025. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. This session Updates on the Palliative Care Management of Congestive Heart Failure is approved for 1.0 enduring AAFP Elective credit.
Note: Physicians should contact their respective licensing boards and specialty certification boards about acceptance of AAFP Elective credits when attempting to satisfy CME credit requirements.

Nurses: The MJHS Institute for Innovation in Palliative Care is approved as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the Northeast Multistate Division Education Unit, an accredited approver of continuing nursing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

Social Workers: MJHS Institute for Innovation in Palliative Care is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0242.

Fees: Free (includes CME/CE certificate)

Release Date: March 10, 2025

Expiration Date: March 9, 2026 (for physicians and non-physicians); May 9, 2025 (for nurses); January 31, 2028 (for NYS Social Workers)

Disclosures:
Michael Mencias, MD, FAAHPM, no financial arrangements or affiliations with any commercial entities whose products, research, or services may be discussed in these materials. Any discussion of investigational or unlabeled uses of a product will be identified.

No Planning Committee Member has any disclosures.

Planning Committee Members
Myra Glajchen, DSW
Kerrianne P. Page, MD, HMDC
Joyce Palmieri, MS, RN, CHPN
Karen Richards, PhD, EdS

Funding Disclosure: No commercial funding has been accepted for the activity.

Location: Online at https://www.mjhspalliativeinstitute.org/e-learning/