P22 - Palliative Management of Heart Failure in the Skilled Nursing Facility

Heart failure is a chronically progressing illness associated with emotional and physical burden. A large portion of residents in skilled nursing facilities have a diagnosis of heart failure. Morbidity and mortality rates are significantly higher for older adults hospitalized with heart failure discharging to skilled nursing facilities rather than returning to home. Effective management of heart failure while residing at a skilled nursing facility with medications and treatments can help alleviate suffering from the disease and reduce hospital admissions. A lack of standardized care processes at skilled nursing facilities is a barrier to providing quality heart failure care. Having heart failure management protocols used in skilled nursing facilities is helpful in managing heart failure symptoms and alerting providers to deterioration in clinical status. Palliative care is targeted to relieving suffering and improving quality of life for persons with serious illness such as heart failure. Palliative care helps facilitate advanced care planning conversations to help patients determine their goals of care. Having goals of care conversations may help promote better quality of life and also reduce hospitalizations. The learning objectives of this presentation are:
1) Identify appropriate medical management of heart failure specific to the skilled nursing facility population.
2) Apply and implement an order set for management of heart failure in the skilled nursing facility.
3) Implement palliative care and advanced care planning with those in the skilled nursing facility with heart failure.  

Learning Outcome: After completing this learning activity, the participant will be able to assess innovations being used by other professionals in the specialty and evaluate the potential of implementing the improvements into practice.