Heart Failure

Below is a link to a Webcast designed to improve the quality of education provided to HF patients by nurses in an inpatient setting.  I would appreciate any feedback on the value of the webcast!

• Did you learn anything new?
• Is there something you wish had been covered more thoroughly?
• Is there anything that you did not feel was valuable?

Patient Education Webcast

Education for HF patients falls in to the following categories (Riegel, et al., 2009):

• Medications
• Symptoms
• Diet
• Fluid
• Alcohol Use
• Weight
• Exercise
• Smoking Cessation
• Preventative Care

The challenge with HF Management is that the patient needs a general understanding of the disease, anatomy and physiology, in order to understand the impact that each of these points can have on their status.  I think that this is often forgotten in the process of teaching.  We are so busy focusing our education on the tasks of self-management (“weigh yourself daily”, “don’t smoke”, “limit alcohol intake”, “get your immunizations”, “take your medications every day”, etc) that we often pass over the basics of the disease. 

www.neworleansheart.com

Do you make sure that your patient understands what heart failure is before delving in to the tasks of self-management?  If so, how?

Edwards Hospital offers their patients the following video.  Do you think that this is adequate?

http://youtu.be/jMS34Il2rwI

Here is a link to an American Heart Association Video that shows the mechanics of HF:

http://www.medmovie.com/mmdatabase/MediaPlayer.aspx?ClientID=69&TopicID=563

The HF Society of America offers free downloadable patient education modules on HF:

http://www.hfsa.org/heart_failure_education_modules.asp

Riegel, et al. (2009).  State of the science:  Promoting self-care in persons with heart failure: A scientific statement from the American Heart Association.  Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, 120, 1141-1163.

Since I know I am going to have a captive audience this week in the form of my N5308 class, I wanted to take the opportunity to find out what different facilities are doing with regard to educating HF patients during their inpatient stay. 

Does your facility have a prepared HF education booklet?

Do the nurses review HF information with the patient or just give them the book?

Does your facility provide any learning methods other than written and verbal (video, demonstration, etc)?

Are new diagnosis HF patients provided the same information as historically diagnosed patients?

It is strange to think that my thoughts and written word are so easily communicated out to the world through the use of the internet and blogging!  I am not web naive by any means and have read many blogs, but this is my first experience building my own.  I hope that the words and resources that I place here can be of help to others that are struggling in the practice of healthcare to make a difference in the long term health of their patients.

The first thing I would like to share with you is a couple of links that are great refreshers on HF for the healthcare provider and a good resource for patients that are a little more internet and medically savy:

The Pub Med Encylopedia entry for HF: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001211/

American Heart Association’s main page on HF information: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/HeartFailure/Heart-Failure_UCM_002019_SubHomePage.jsp

Hopefully these resources will refresh everyone on the basics of HF!