Heart failure and weight gain monitoring

Heart failure is one of the most common diagnoses of the elderly in the United States. The nursing literature has demonstrated that nursing interventions aimed at effective discharge planning and appropriate self-care activities can improve outcomes for patients hospitalized with heart failure. The purpose of this research was to identify, through retrospective medical record review, the discharge instruction related to self-weight monitoring provided to a sample of heart failure patients. The patients in the sample were 65 years and older with an ICD-9 diagnostic code of heart failure upon discharge from an acute care hospital in the Midwest. Results demonstrated the lack of nursing attentiveness to teaching self-monitoring weight gain to heart failure patients while hospitalized and the need for more comprehensive planning for appropriate discharge referrals. Suggestions are made for expanding documentation tools to improve nursing discharge planning and case management to ensure that the patient or caregiver is able to carry out self-care activities at home.