نبذة مختصرة : Heart failure is a widespread and costly problem in the United States. Heart failure causes hospital readmissions, leading to high costs and poor patient outcomes. Heart failure management with telehealth use in the patient’s home setting is associated with decreased heart failure-related hospital readmissions, increased health-related quality of life, and improved self-care levels. This evidence-based project aimed to increase self-care levels and decrease rehospitalization rates in heart failure patients. The sample size included three adult female community-dwelling heart failure patients. The project setting was an outpatient heart failure clinic in Olathe, Kansas. The outcomes measured were the pre- and post-self-care levels and the number of pre- and post-heart failure-related rehospitalizations over a 12-month post-intervention period. The Self Care of Heart Failure Index measured heart failure-related self-care levels. Rehospitalizations were measured using self-reported participant data for pre- and post-intervention data. The post-intervention heart failure-related self-care results decreased for each participant, as evidenced by a decrease in each section of the SCHFI, p > .05. The number of heart failure-related rehospitalizations did not change, with one rehospitalization reported in both the pre- and post-intervention periods. Although the desired results were not achieved over the 12 months for improvement in heart failure-related self-care levels or reduction of heart failure-related rehospitalization rates, the implementation of personalized education in the outpatient setting shows promise for improving outcomes for heart failure patients. However, the potential impacts of telehealth are significant, including decreased treatment costs, decreased rehospitalizations, increased self-care levels, and improved health-related quality of life.
No Comments.