Pharmacological treatment of heart failure.

This article provides an overview of heart failure (HF) and pharmacological treatment of systolic left ventricular dysfunction. The purpose of this article is to provide nurses the knowledge of current treatment recommendations and the Five Million Lives campaign sponsored by the National Institute of Healthcare Improvement. This initiative is a national campaign to protect 5 million patients from medical harm by promoting evidence-based standards of practice to improve the healthcare of Americans. HF has become part of this national initiative and the National Institute of Healthcare Improvement in conjunction with the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association has implemented guidelines to improve the care of HF patients. Nurses would be expected to be familiar with these guidelines, as regulatory agencies will be using these guidelines as a benchmark to evaluate the quality of care provided to patients with this diagnosis.