Abstract 16673: Empowering Heart Failure Patients Through Technology and Focused Education

Abstract

Introduction: Heart Failure (HF) patient engagement after hospital discharge is key to preventing readmission and compliance. According to Medicare Hospital Compare the average rate of unplanned readmission is 21.6% Objective: The Rise Above Heart Failure™(RAHF) pilot program was created to identify strategies to reduce the burden of common HF complications and ultimately reduce hospitalization. The pilot included targeted quality improvement strategies, provider engagement, and a redesigned patient journey. Methods: Three North Texas pilot sites received quality improvement consultation and measured their progress towards improved guideline-directed care by tracking the impact to the 1,347 patients discharged with heart failure in Get With The Guidelines®-Heart Failure (GWTG-HF). The RAHF Pilot Program focused on engaging key stakeholders who working in partnership with AHA staff, developed a new patient journey for patients in the pilot. Results: The percent of HF patients who received 60 minutes of heart failure education by a qualified heart failure educator was analyzed and yielded the following results: the program hospitals saw an average adherence of 51.0% in Q2 and 53.9% adherence in Q4 (%Δ =5.8%). Additionally, the pilot program’s average of 50.47% during Q2-Q4 was more than 10% greater than the national average during the same time period. In the outpatient setting, HF PATH app users completed both a pre and post knowledge assessment between Oct 2019 - March 2020. A perfect score on the assessment is 19. The average pre-score for these participants is 16.33, while the average post-score for these participants is 17. Conclusions: Midterm results indicate that the program is successfully increasing HF patient education to increase patient awareness and understanding of HF, as represented by higher adherence to the 60 Minutes of Heart Failure Education measure and positive trends in the HF Path app knowledge assessment scores.