Risk EValuation And Its Impact on ClinicAL Decision Making and Outcomes in Heart Failure

Heart failure is the major cause of mortality and morbidity in the United States and Western Europe and prognosis in individual patients is highly variable. Quantifying a patient's survival prospects based on their overall risk profile has the potential to help identify those patients in need of more intensive monitoring and help target appropriate populations for therapies. In fact, several comprehensive risk scores in patients with heart failure are currently available for both reduced and preserved ejection fraction but their applicability to contemporary heart failure populations is unknown. Additionally, the impact of knowing a patient's prognostic information on treatment decisions in heart failure has never been studied. Therefore, guidelines do not recommend using risk assessments to decide on therapeutic decision making in heart failure due to a lack of data for this strategy. The investigators have proposed a randomized controlled trial be conducted of an electronic alert system that informs practitioners about their patients risk of inpatient mortality and 1-year predicted mortality using data from the electronic health record (EHR). The primary outcome for the trial will be a composite of all-cause mortality and 30-day risk of heart failure rehospitalization. The secondary outcomes will be length of stay, discharge doses of heart failure therapies, palliative care referral, referral for advanced therapies like transplant or mechanical circulatory support, referral to electrophysiology, and change in weight during hospitalization (aggressiveness of diuresis). The investigators will enroll into the trial across the hospitals that comprise the Yale New Haven Health System.