Reducing Heart Failure Readmissions Through Patient Education Program

Abstract

The use of patient education as a tool to facilitate improved patient outcomes has been widely used by clinicians in healthcare. The aim of this quality improvement (QI) project was implementation of an outpatient heart failure (HF) education program with the goal of reducing 30-day hospital readmissions. Participants in this DNP QI project were adult patients with a recent admission for HF, either systolic or diastolic. Patients were offered follow up at hospital discharge in an outpatient HF education program. Over the course of 11-weeks participants were evaluated on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Twenty participants were enrolled in this program. Of the 20 participants, 65% (n=13) kept their initial visit with the HF education clinic. The remaining 35% (n=7) were enrolled in the HF clinic but missed their initial follow up visit with the clinic. Twenty-five percent (n=5) of the total number of participants in this project were readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of initial discharge. Of these 5 patients who were readmitted, 80% (n=4) had not shown up for their initial hospital follow up visits. These findings were consistent with current literature available on the topic of HF readmissions and patient education, as an observed difference in admission recurrence was noted between participants who were engaged in the education program and those who did not attend scheduled appointments.