Academic Editor: Peter A. McCullough
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is an unprecedented challenge.
Meeting this has resulted in changes to working practices and the impact on the
management of patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF)
is largely unknown. We performed a retrospective, observational study contrasting
patients diagnosed with HFrEF attending specialist heart failure clinics at a UK
hospital, whose subsequent period of optimisation of medical therapy was during
the COVID-19 pandemic, with patients diagnosed the previous year. The primary
outcome was the change in equivalent dosing of ramipril and bisoprolol at
6-months. Secondary outcomes were the number and type of follow-up consultations,
hospitalisation for heart failure and all-cause mortality. In total, 60 patients
were diagnosed with HFrEF between 1 December 2019 and 30 April 2020, compared to
54 during the same period of the previous year. The absolute number of
consultations was higher (390 vs 270; p = 0.69), driven by increases in
telephone consultations, with a reduction in appointments with hospital nurse
specialists. After 6-months, we observed lower equivalent dosing of ramipril (3.1