Determining the Effectiveness of a Nurse-Led Heart Failure Education Program \nin Reducing 30-Day Hospital Heart Failure Readmissions

The purpose of this project was to determine if a nurse-led heart failure (HF) education program would reduce overall 30-day hospital readmissions related to. Affecting millions of adults in the United States, HF is a growing health epidemic as well as an economic burden to healthcare systems. The population for this project included patients admitted with a diagnosis of acute or chronic HF based on the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10) codes. An electronic health record intervention indicated that when a healthcare provider diagnosed a patient with any HF ICD-10 code, the nurse-led HF education intervention would appear in Meditech on the nurse’s worklist. The 8-week preintervention underwent comparison to the 8-week postintervention to determine if there was a decrease in 30 day readmission rates, with Microsoft Excel used to analyze the data. Project implementation occurred at 2 hospital sites where bedside nurses conducted standardized nurse-led HF patient education before inpatient discharge. Fewer patients discharged with an HF diagnosis were readmitted within 30 days postintervention (9.72%; March–April 2024) than preintervention (14.42%; January–February 2024. The results showed that nurse-led HF education is effective at decreasing 30-day HF readmissions. Future studies at the same site will occur to examine sustainability and how the intervention affects 30-day HF readmission rates. Keywords: heart failure, nurse-led heart failure education, 30-day heart failure readmissions, heart failure discharge patient education