Introduction
My capstone is titled “Easy to Reference Educational Sheet that Promotes Positive Behavior in CHF patients to Avoid Readmissions.” It targets patients with congestive heart failure – a chronic condition affecting the heart’s ability to pump blood (Mohamed et al., 2018). Patient education is the key to successfully managing this condition because CHF requires changes in a person’s lifestyle – diet, exercise, and taking medication as prescribed. It is an important topic because, without proper at-home management, patients can face complications, leading to readmissions, or even death if they forget to take medication or fail to address new symptoms by talking to their provider. This presentation will outline the way of addressing the discussed issues – a supplement to a hospital guide on CFH management, and I will discuss statistics, literature findings, and outline the capstone itself.
About CHF
CHF requires at-home management from the patients, and they must ensure that they follow the recommendations regarding their diet, exercise, medication, and monitor their symptoms. According to the estimations by Pi and Hu (2018), 5 million people in the United States have CHF, and it is an increasing problem because, by 2030, the number of patients diagnosed with CHF will increase by 46%. Hence, hospitals should prepare to manage the growing population of patients by developing appropriate strategies for management. Currently, Saint Barnaba’s nursing staff is instructed to give patients guidebooks upon discharge, which is 28 pages long.
Problem Statement and Project Outline
Nurse-led patient education enhances adherence to CHF management recommendations (Rice et al., 2018; Mathew & Thukha, 2018). The idea of this project is to print out a supplement for the hospital’s 28-page guide in English and Spanish, which will have the essential recommendations and references to page numbers. Nurses will offer patients this supplement to the guidebook, where the main at-home management recommendations are presented. These supplements will be presented in two languages – English and Spanish, to aid the Spanish-speaking population. This is because currently, Saint Barnaba only has an English guide, despite it being located in a community with a substantial number of Spanish-speaking individuals. Evidence suggests that the primary way to address readmissions and complications of CHF is to enhance patient education. For example, Rice et al. (2018) and Mathew & Thukha (2018) report a decrease in readmission rates after nurse-led patient education sessions. Hence, this project targets the patient’s understanding of CHF and its management by helping them remember the recommendations from their provider.
Lewin’s Theory
Lewin’s change theory was used as a guideline to anticipate any difficulties that can arise as a result of this project. Mainly, it will help address the problem of nurses who see this change as an additional workload. Hence, at the unfreeze stage, I will explain that the supplement will help reduce readmissions and thus reduce the overall workload. At the change stage, the nurses will begin distributing the project, and at the refreeze stage, the readmission rates after 30 days will be examined.
Supplement
The evidence for this project was collected via scholarly research by searching for ways to reduce readmission rates for the population of patients with CHF, which was used to create this supplement. This is the English version of the guide, and the Spanish version is similar in the way the information is organized. The nurses will be instructed to explain to the patients the purpose of this supplement and how they can use it to find the information they are interested in in the main guide. Additionally, the nurses will advise the patients to put this guide on their refrigerators or in any other place where they can see them daily.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this project aims to address the gap in patient knowledge and patient education for the CHF population at Santa Barnaba’s hospital. The stages of Lewin’s change theory will be considered when developing and implementing the project – the freeze and unfreeze stages. As a result, the readmission rates will be measured after 30 days to determine the success of this capstone.
References
Mohamed, M., Alaa El-Deen, S., Ali, G., & Ibrahim, M. (2019). Effect of applying a clinical pathway for patients with Congestive Heart Failure on their health status outcomes. Nursing and Palliative Care International Journal, 2(1), 12-19. doi:10.30881/npcij.00010
Pi, H. Y., & Hu, X. (2016). Nursing care in old patients with heart failure: current status and future perspectives. Journal of Geriatric Cardiology : JGC, 13(5), 387–390. doi:10.11909/j.issn.1671-5411.2016.05.019
Rice, H., Say, R., & Betihavas, V. (2018). The effect of nurse-led education on hospitalisation, readmission, quality of life and cost in adults with heart failure. A systematic review. Patient Education And Counseling, 101(3), 363-374. doi:10.1016/j.pec.2017.10.0