Identify Problem for Chronic Heart Failure CHF Order Instructions: Identifying a Problem Max Points: 40
Details:
Prepare for the capstone project by listening to the audio interview, “Capstone: Planning Your Project”.
Preview and utilize the “Topic 1 Checklist.” This resource will assist you in organizing your work and will provide additional information regarding the assignment.
Consider the clinical environment in which you are currently working or have recently worked. Collaborate with a leader or educator in the clinical environment to identify a problem, issue, or educational deficit upon which to build a proposal for change.
In a paper of no more than 800 words, describe the nature of the problem, issue, or educational deficit. Include the following in your discussion:
The setting and/or context in which the problem, issue, or educational deficit can be observed.
A detailed description of the problem, issue, or educational deficit.
Impact of the problem, issue, or educational deficit on the work environment, the quality of care provided by staff, and patient outcomes.
The gravity of the problem, issue, or educational deficit and its significance to nursing.
The proposed solution to address the problem, issue, or educational deficit.
Prepare for the capstone project by listening to the audio interview, “Capstone: Planning Your Project”, located at http://lc.gcumedia.com/zwebassets/courseMaterialPages/nrs441v_capstone.php.
Review “Topic 1: Checklist.” This resource will assist you in organizing your work and will provide additional information regarding the assignment.
Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
You are not required to submit this assignment to Turnitin.
2 NRS 441v.11R.Module1_Checklist.doc
Identify Problem for Chronic Heart Failure CHF Sample Answer
Identify the problem
Chronic Heart Failure (CHF) is one of the leading causes of mortality among the geriatric population. The disease also presents a clinical burden as well as an economic burden to both the patient and their families. Approximately, half of the hospitalizations in these healthcare facilities are associated with other diseases associated with CHF and polypharmacy (Huether & McCance, 2012). In addition, CHF is associated with enormous cost due to prognosis and is associated with 35% mortality in this nation. In my health facility, most patients who of patients affected with poor prognosis are patients who are above 75 years. This is associated to the fact that most of the patients are suffering from other health disorders such as diabetes, and management of these diseases will require various types of medications. Although medication is associated with relieve of symptoms and to improve the patients living condition, there is low health literacy and education deficit of self-management in this population group is low (Huether & McCance, 2012).
Lack of adequate knowledge deficit is associated with medication compliance, which causes further worsening of HF symptoms. Various studies have been conducted to examine the role of patient education in compliance in HF medication and lifestyle modification. Study findings indicated that patients with increased knowledge had better CHF outcomes as compared to patients with low education. The study concluded that increasing patient knowledge led to a change in patient’s beliefs; and recommended that extra attention should be paid when interacting with geriatric population diagnosed with CHF (Dains, Bauman, and Scheibel, 2012).
Frequent hospitalization is triggered by the low health literacy and knowledge on self-management of the disease. In this healthcare facility, there is a high rate of readmission of geriatric patients diagnosed with CHF, especially in their first 6 months after they have been discharged from the hospital. The most critical time for readmission is considered to be the first to be the first 30 -90 days. At my health care facility, the re-admission rates are 25%. This in turn results in increased costs of management. This has been supported by an immeasurable number of studies in other healthcare facilities and in other nations. The causes and factors of low patient education in this healthcare facility have not been investigated, but I can associate it with factors such as low staff ratio and limited time (Dains, Bauman, and Scheibel, 2012).
CHF education among this population group is extremely important because it changed their beliefs as well as their attitudes, which enables them to seek the appropriate health behaviour. This is especially important for this group because CHF is a health disorder that involves complex management strategies, which sometimes it will involve lifestyle modification. Therefore, the patient education should follow an instrumental action; which mainly implies that it will influence the patient behaviour as well as his attitude. In this case, the education information provided should be done using instructions, laying an emphasis on the patient needs and what the patient must do to remain healthy and not on what the patient should know (Huether & McCance, 2012).
Ideally, the patient education should be done when the patient is admitted, continued throughout his or her admission period and extended to when the patient is discharged or during their outpatient clinic. This is because it will improve prognosis and the visits to hospital admissions. This is not the case at my healthcare facility. The geriatric CHF education is conducted in a group, normally twice a week. There is no follow up to check if the patient has changed their attitudes and beliefs, and if they have adopted the recommended lifestyle. Consequently, there are always high incidences of CHF patient re- admission (Huether & McCance, 2012).
To address this issue, the recommended solution is to integrate education processes specific to the geriatric population. This should use the following steps; a) assessment of the patient’s knowledge; b) cognition function, c) patients motivation and attitudes, d) challenges faced by the patients. This strategy is chosen because it helps in identifying the learning barriers, the needs that must be assessed which facilitates in education planning. Individualization of needs is very challenging. However, the nurses can give priority to general topics such as weight control and diets. This should be followed with trainings on pharmacological treatments of CHF (Huether & McCance, 2012).
Other strategies that can be integrated with these strategies include home visits, monitoring telephone, and community programs. This will help the nurses understand the family involvement as well as the dynamic involved. This will help the nurses to understand the necessary education that should be offered at the family level. This will provide an opportunity to develop the most effective prevention. This will help reduce mortality rates, low re-admission rates and improve patient’s quality of life. The complexity of managing CHF is a challenge and the nurse role is to ensure that they interact with the multidisciplinary teams (Dains, Bauman, and Scheibel, 2012).
Identify Problem for Chronic Heart Failure CHF References
Dains, J.E., Bauman, L.C., Scheibel, P. (2012). Advanced Health Assessment and Clinical Diagnosis in Primary Care.
Huether, S. E., & McCance, K. L. (2012). Understanding pathophysiology (Laureate custom ed.). St. Louis
