Acute congestive heart failure in the emergency department.

Acute heart failure and cardiogenic pulmonary edema is a common cause of respiratory distress among patients presenting to the emergency department. The emergency department is frequently the primary entry point into the health care system for these patients and is the site of initial stabilization, evaluation, and management of the patient.Emergency physicians, alongside cardiologists, play a critical role as these patients are treated in the emergency department and transferred to the cardiac ICU. The approach to the critically ill patient who has heart failure should be multidisciplinary and involve the emergency physician and the cardiologist who will care for the patient.