Rethinking heart failure care and health technologies from early COVID-19 experiences - A narrative review

Heart Failure (HF), a common chronic disease, requires multidisciplinary care to optimise outcomes. The COVID-19 pandemic, its impact on people's movement and access to health services, introduced severe challenges to chronic disease management. The era that will evolve after this pandemic is likely to provide uncertainty and service model disruptions. HF treatment is based on guidelines derived from randomised clinical trial evidence. Translational shortfalls from trials into practice have been overcome with post-trial service improvement studies like OPTIMIZE-HF where a team using a process of care can translate evidence to the general population. However, gaps remain for vulnerable populations e.g. those with more severe HF, with multiple comorbid conditions, and certain demographic groups and/or residents in remote locations. Health technology has come with great promise, to fill some of these gaps. The COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to observe, from Australian healthcare lens, HF management outside the traditional model of care. This narrative review describes relatively recent events with health technology as a solution to improve on service gaps.