Does a nurse-managed clinic follow-up reduce hospital readmissions and length of stay in patients with CHF after discharge?
A nurse-managed follow-up clinic for post-discharge CHF patients can effectively reduce hospital readmissions and length of stay.
Hospital readmission for exacerbation of symptoms of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) is a major home healthcare problem and expense. To address this problem and curb the increasing expense and patient lifestyle disruption, a group of staff nurses at the Medical University of South Carolina Medical Center developed a nurse-managed clinic to follow all patients with CHF after discharge. Within 6 months of the clinic's operation, readmissions of these patients decreased by 4%, and the length of stay decreased by 1.6 days.
Marie Lasater (Wed,) studied this question.