Nurse-Led Heart Failure Education: Improving the Quality of Life for Home Hospice Patients

Abstract

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. It is also healthcare’s costliest illness. Many people with advanced heart failure are now choosing to remain in their homes and focus on the comfort-directed care that hospice can provide rather than spending their last days in a hospital. Many hospices now can provide parenteral furosemide for symptom management in the home. This project focused on nurses providing education to patients and their families on how to recognize and better manage these symptoms. Nurses were asked to have patients fill out the palliative care outcome scale. This scale is a Likert scale with scores from zero to four. If patients scored a two or higher on any symptom, the nurse was asked to use the heart failure pamphlet as a guide to provide additional education to that patient. The goals of the project included increasing patient education, reducing after-hours phone calls, and improving self-symptom management. The data showed nurses were providing additional education to patients who had higher POS scores. The primary feedback from the nursing staff revealed that the project made them more mindful of what symptoms patients were experiencing.