Integrating the American Heart Association's Clinical Decision Tool to Reduce Heart Failure Readmissions in an Academic Acute Care Hospital

Early recognition and intervention of heart failure decompensation decrease re-hospitalization. Integrating the American Heart Association's Heart Failure Self-Check Plan clinical decision tool in a standardized heart failure patient education program of a hybrid heart failure-trauma critical care unit within an academic acute care hospital reduced 7- and 30-day heart failure readmissions from 8% and 22%, to 2% and 8.5%, respectively, saving $424,764 to $698,733. Keywords: Heart failure, readmissions, education, self-care competencies, care coordination.
Heart failure is a clinical syndrome associated with multi-comorbidities, high mortality, and high costs of care (Diez-Villanueva et al., 2021; Virani et al., 2021). By 2030, according to recent studies, [...]