Impact of a Palliative Care Education Module in Patients With Heart Failure

Heart failure (HF) impacts 6.2 million American adults. With no cure, therapies aim to prevent progression and manage symptoms. Inclusion of palliative care (PC) helps improve symptoms and quality of life. Heart failure guidelines recommend the inclusion of PC in HF therapy, but referrals are often delayed.

Introduce PC to patients with HF and examine the impact on PC consults, readmission, mortality, and intensive care unit (ICU) transfers.

Patients (n = 60) admitted with HF to an academic hospital were asked to view a PC educational module. A number of PC consults, re-admissions, mortality, and transfers to the ICU were compared among participants and those who declined.

Nine patients in the intervention group (n = 30) requested a PC consult (P = .042) versus 2 in the usual care group (n = 30; P = .302). There was no statistically significant difference in readmissions, mortality, or ICU transfers between groups.

Palliative care education increases the likelihood of PC utilization but in this short-term project was not found to statistically impact mortality, re-admissions, or transfers to higher levels of care.