The Impact of Nurse Education on Heart Failure Readmissions and Patient Education

Heart failure (HF) has become a national concern, with approximately 5.7 million adults in the United States suffering from this life-altering disease. Improved education of these patients prior to discharge helps patients manage their disease adequately and reduce symptom exacerbations.

This quality improvement initiative aimed to determine the effectiveness of an educational intervention in improving nurses' knowledge of HF discharge teaching and documentation of this education in patient charts.

This project was conducted at a Magnet-recognized acute care hospital with 39 critical care step-down beds. Twenty-nine nurses employed on the step-down unit participated in the educational intervention. Pre/post nurse knowledge and chart review data were analyzed.

There was a statistically significant increase in the percentage of patients receiving HF education from unit nurses from preintervention 77.0% (n = 81) to postintervention 96.4% (n = 138) (p < .001). There was also a statistically significant increase in the mean number of days patients were educated from 1.64 to 2.58 days (p < .001). Nurse knowledge also increased from pretest (69.7%) to posttest scores (100%) (p < .001).

Providing HF educational opportunities enhanced nurse knowledge and increased their documentation of HF education in patient charts.

Nurse educators may use the study results to improve nurse education and practices aimed at reducing HF readmissions.