Maintaining LVAD Patient Competency: Healthy Patient, Healthy Pump

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Education for patients and caregivers is the crux of successful left ventricular assist device (LVAD) management in the community. The need to educate patients is imperative to ensure patient understanding, compliance and safe management of the LVAD system. Studies suggest routine review of LVAD self-care concepts is important and this was identified as a potential area for improvement in our programme. Therefore, we developed a multi-disciplinary quality improvement initiative in the form of a VAD Patient Education Day to provide a refresher of LVAD concepts for patient and caregivers. The VAD Patient Education Day was designed to: 1) provide a review on LVAD management; 2) promote self-care and comradery; and 3) introduce our new driveline infection (DLI) quality improvement (QI) initiative. A survey was conducted at the end of the event to see if these goals were meet. Forty patients, along with their caregivers, were invited to attend the one day educational event. Twenty-seven patients and twenty-one caregivers attended with 63% completing the survey. In total, 83% of respondents rated their experience of the event as 'excellent'. When asked "What did you like most about the VAD Patient Education Day?" an emerging theme among attendees was a sense of community and opportunity to gain insights from others' experiences. Patient and caregivers felt the ability to have a refresher about equipment and self-care processes added to the overall experience. Our DLI QI launch was felt to expand upon current self-care practices. When asked about topics for future education days, patients felt it was important to have a presentations on 1) a pharmacist about medications; 2) have an open panel of physicians to discuss medical topics and 3) wanted more discussions on life-style changes post implant. Based on the survey results, our team felt we met our goal of providing an education day that holistically encompassed the patient by: providing a review on LVAD management; promoting camaraderie and self-care; and launching QI initiatives. Considerations for future education days include allowing patients to select breakout sessions meaningful to their care and provide sessions aimed at caregivers to address burnout.