The role of nurses in the management of heart failure

Care provided by specialist nurses has been shown to improve outcomes for patients with chronic heart failure (CHF), significantly reducing the number of unplanned readmissions, length of hospital stay, hospital costs, and mortality. Most patients develop CHF as a result of coronary artery disease. Once cardiac damage has occurred, the risk of developing heart failure can be reduced by providing appropriate treatment at appropriate dosages. While cardiac rehabilitation clinics provide an opportunity to check drug usage, their prime focus is on optimising patients' physical well being following a heart attack. In addition, evidence suggests that general practitioners are frequently reluctant to initiate appropriate treatments and to up-titrate drug dosages even for patients with diagnosed heart failure. Therefore, to ensure that these patients are not left on starting doses of medications many hospitals are now setting up nurse led post-myocardial infarction (MI) clinics. The Omada programme is a secondary care based, nurse led model of care set up in 1999 to improve the management of CHF by providing appropriate patient education within a nurse led clinic setting, optimising evidence based medication and fostering partnership between health professionals in both primary and secondary care. The model of care is highly applicable to the post-MI setting, where it can ensure that patients receive better care at an earlier stage.