Discharge Planning Considerations for Congestive Heart Failure: A DNP Project

Abstract Clinicians are challenged to prevent readmission of patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). The purpose of this project was to: 1) prepare students to better understand the discharge process for patients with CHF; and 2) obtain the opinion of nurses that were involved in the discharge process in the presence of COVID-19 Pandemic. The Delta Care Program (DCP) was used to guide the project and may be a useful tool for discharge planning. An intervention on use of the DCP was delivered to students (N = 83). Findings indicated that student nurses felt confident in the application of the DCP to assist patients, family members, and caregivers to manage the disease process in the comfort of their home. The student nurses noted that the DCP intervention is an important component of the discharge process in the clinical setting, and one that will help CHF patients tremendously with self-management techniques. As an additional outcome, frontline nurses were surveyed concerning the impact of COVID-19 on the discharge process. The nurses (N = 12) expressed that when family members are not present in the discharge planning process it is challenging to transition care from the healthcare facility to the home setting. Collectively this work adds to an effort to utilize evidence in the discharge process and better understand new, emerging challenges with the discharge process. Keywords: discharges, congestive heart failure, COVID-19, Delta Care Progra