Providers/Grant Support

This educational activity is presented in collaboration with Rush University Medical Center and Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning (ACHL).

Supported by an educational grant from Merck & Co., Inc.

Credits Available

Physicians — maximum of 5.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™
Physicians — maximum of 5.0 MOC Points
Pharmacists — maximum of 5.0 contact hours
Nurses — maximum of 5.0 contact hours

Target Audience

This activity is intended for pulmonologists, cardiologists, primary care physicians, hospitalists, geriatricians, internal medicine physicians, pharmacists, and other members of the multidisciplinary teams treating patients with or at risk for PAH.

Program Overview

Although there are treatments that improve functional and hemodynamic outcomes and quality of life in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and the therapeutic landscape is continuing to evolve, persistent gaps across care pathways undermine these treatment advances. Indeed, patient outcomes remain suboptimal due to delayed diagnosis, underutilization of risk assessment tools, initial undertreatment, and failure to escalate therapy when appropriate.

Multidisciplinary approaches to PAH management offer strategies to mitigate these gaps and improve adherence to guideline recommendations to better individualize patient care, and quality improvement (QI) is ideally suited to systematically improve care through standardization of processes and systems to reduce variations in practice. However, QI can be burdensome to execute; programs developed by large health systems are often difficult to translate to smaller practice environments and a large proportion of smaller hospitals and clinics may be unable to undertake their own QI initiatives.

To make the benefits of QI available to a larger population of clinicians (including ABIM MOC Part IV credit and Merit-based Incentive Payment System, MIPS, requirements), this educational program offers an “out of the box” online improvement program that uses self-reported data on structural and process measures to overcome barriers to change and achieve meaningful and wide-ranging improvements.

Select from prepopulated goals and interventions or develop your own to create a customized action plan that is scalable, allowing you to prioritize areas of greatest need or circumvent areas that are of lesser relevance in your setting.

Don’t delay! Start improving your PAH diagnostic and treatment processes and practices now!

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this activity, learners will be able to:

• Integrate evidence-based approaches in the screening and diagnosis of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH)
• Implement treatment algorithms and clinical trial evidence in practice to optimize initial treatment selection and ongoing treatment modifications in PAH
• Establish multidisciplinary team roles and workflows for monitoring therapy, facilitating access, and providing whole-person care for patients with PAH

Upon completion of this activity, pharmacists will be able to:

• Implement treatment algorithms and clinical trial evidence in practice to optimize initial treatment selection in PAH
• Implement treatment algorithms and clinical trial evidence in practice to optimize ongoing treatment modifications in PAH
• Establish multidisciplinary team roles and workflows for monitoring therapy, facilitating access, and providing whole-person care for patients with PAH

Faculty

Bhuvin Buddhdev, MD, FCCP

Associate Professor of Medicine
Transplant Pulmonologist, Director, Pulmonary Hypertension Program
Norton Thoracic Institute, St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center
Creighton University School of Medicine
Phoenix, AZ

Jennalyn Mayeux, DNP

Pulmonary Hypertension and Dyspnea Program Director
University of Utah Hospitals & Clinics
Salt Lake City, UT

John Ryan, MD, MB, BCH, BAO

Professor of Medicine
Director, Cardiology Fellowship
Chief, General Cardiology
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, UT

Henry Okoroike, PharmD (Pharmacy Planner)

Rush University Medical Center
Chicago, IL

Agenda

Screening for PAH
Diagnosis and Classification
Focus on Echocardiography
Risk Assessment
Treatment Selection: Recommendations From the 7th World Symposium on Pulmonary Hypertension
Highlights of Recent Clinical Trials of Approved PAH Therapies
Patient Case: PAH vs PH Associated With Lung Disease
Multidisciplinary Care in PAH
Patient-Centered Care in PAH

Accreditation Statement

In support of improving patient care, Rush University Medical Center is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

This activity is being presented without bias and with commercial support.

Credit Designation

Rush University Medical Center designates this Enduring Material for a maximum of 5.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the learner to earn credit toward the CME of the American Board of Surgery’s Continuous Certification program. It is the CME activity provider’s responsibility to submit learner completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABS credit.

Physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) may participate in this educational activity and earn a certificate of completion as AAPA and AANP accept AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ through their reciprocity agreements.

Rush University Medical Center designates this Enduring Material for a maximum of 5.0 nursing contact hour(s).

Rush University Medical Center designates this application-based activity for a maximum of 5.0 contact hour(s) for pharmacists.
ACPE Universal Activity Number: JA0000275-0000-25-326-H01-P

Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to 5.0 MOC points in the American Board of Internal Medicine’s (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. Participants will earn MOC points equivalent to the amount of CME credits claimed for the activity. It is the CME activity provider’s responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABIM MOC points. By providing your ABIM Diplomate number, you consent to have ACHL and/or our educational partners submit your participation in this activity to the ABIM through the ACCME PARS system. ABIM credit will be submitted to PARS on the first day of each month.

Completion of this activity, including the pretest, posttest, and follow-up assessments, qualifies as a medium weight MIPS improvement activity under MACRA and can be claimed as completion of IA_PSPA 28 of an Accredited Safety or Quality Improvement Program in the Quality Payment Program. Clinicians should submit their improvement activities by attestation via the CMS Quality Payment Program website. You will receive additional information after completing the activity and receiving your certificate via email.

Disclosures of Conflicts of Interest

It is the policy of the Interprofessional Continuing Education office at Rush to ensure that its CE activities are independent, free of commercial bias. Therefore, we manage all financial relationships associated with accredited continuing education activities. RUSH asks everyone who has the ability to control or influence the content of an educational activity to disclose information about all of their financial relationships with ineligible companies within the prior 24 months. An ineligible company is an entity whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. There is no minimum threshold; individuals must disclose all financial relationships, regardless of the amount, with ineligible companies. Individuals must disclose regardless of their view of the relevance of relationships to education. Mechanisms are in place to identify and mitigate any potential conflicts of interest prior to the planning, implementation, or evaluation of the continuing education activity. If a financial relationship is identified for the person in control of content, conflict mitigation strategies will be used to mitigate the financial relationship before they assume their role.

Rush University Medical Center and the Office of Interprofessional Continuing Education staff members, ACHL staff members, and others involved with the planning, development, and review of the content for this activity have no relevant affiliations or financial relationships to disclose.

Individuals in control of content for this activity have the following relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to disclose and all financial relationships have been mitigated.

The following financial relationships have been provided:
Bhuvin Buddhdev, MD, FCCP
Advisory Board: Johnson & Johnson, Liquidia, United Therapeutics

Jennalyn Mayeux, DNP
Consultant: Johnson & Johnson
Speakers Bureau: Johnson & Johnson, Liquidia, Merck

John Ryan, MD, MB, BCH, BAO
Speakers Bureau: Liquidia, United Therapeutics, Bayer, Johnson and Johnson, Kiniksa, Merck

Henry Okoroike, PharmD
No financial relationships to disclose

Instructions for Participation and Credit

To receive credit, learners are required to complete a baseline assessment; design, develop, and implement an action plan using our automated platform; view online interventions; and return after 30 days to report progress in making system-level changes. A thorough response to the reflection questionnaire on your involvement in the quality improvement activity is also required for meaningful participation. A certificate will be available upon completion of the reflection questionnaire. There is no fee to participate in the activity or for the generation of the certificate.

ABIM credit will be submitted to ABIM within 30 days of completion.

For questions, contact Laurie Novoryta at [email protected].

Disclaimer

The content for this activity was developed independently of any ineligible company. All materials are included with permission. The opinions expressed are those of the faculty and are not to be construed as those of the publisher or grantor(s).

This educational activity was planned and produced in accordance with the ACCME Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education. Recommendations involving clinical medicine in a continuing medical education (CME/CE) activity must be based on evidence that is accepted within the profession of medicine as adequate justification for their indications and contraindications in the care of patients. All scientific research referred to, reported, or used in CME/CE in support or justification of a patient care recommendation must conform to the generally accepted standards of experimental design, data collection, and analysis.

Unapproved Uses of Drugs/Devices: In accordance with requirements of the FDA, the audience is advised that information presented in this continuing medical education activity may contain references to unlabeled or unapproved uses of drugs or devices. Please refer to the FDA approved package insert for each drug/device for full prescribing/utilization information.

Disclosure of Unlabeled Use

Discussion of scientific information on unapproved uses (SIUU), off-label, investigational, or experimental drug/device use: None

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