Medical Student Research Forum Posters

Despite advances in clinical and diagnostic medicine, heart failure (HF) is commonly misdiagnosed. This can lead to sub-optimal care and a decline in quality of life and in patient outcomes. Studies show that even patients diagnosed with HF don’t always receive optimal care. Guideline directed medical therapy (GDMT) is a wellestablished pharmaceutical framework to treat HFrEF that has shown clear mortality benefits. GDMT consists of initiating therapy with the following therapeutics before titrating to optimal dose:- β-Blockers (BB) - ACEi, ARB or ARNI - Mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA). However, studies show that significant gaps in both usage and dosages of GDMT still exist. As such, we propose creating a cohort of UCD HF patients using discrete variables (i.e. BNP, LVEF) to improve HF detection and treatment.