Practices of Referring Patients to Advanced Heart Failure Centers.

ABSTRACT Background Therapies for advanced heart failure (AHF) improve the likelihood of survival in a growing population of patients with stage D heart failure (HF). Successful implementation of these therapies is dependent upon timely and appropriate referrals to AHF centers. Methods We performed a retrospective analysis of patients referred to 9 AHF centers for evaluation for AHF therapies. Patients’ demographics, referring providers’ characteristics, referral circumstances, and evaluation outcomes were collected. Results The majority of referrals (n = 515) were male (73.4%), and a majority of those were in the advanced state of the disease: very low left ventricular ejection fraction ( Conclusions In this multicenter review of AHF referrals, HF cardiologists referred the most patients despite being a relatively small proportion of the overall clinician population. Late referral was prevalent in this high-risk patient population and correlates with worsened outcomes, suggesting a significant need for broad clinician education regarding the benefits, triggers and appropriate timing of referral to AHF centers for optimal patient outcomes.