ABSTRACT

Frequent hospitalizations for heart failure remain a significant burden for both patients and the healthcare system, despite the availability of evidence-based guidelines. These guidelines emphasize medication management, timely follow-up, and interdisciplinary collaboration through meaningful learning, in and out of the hospital. This quality improvement project aimed to enhance care team adherence to guideline-based care at a small Midwestern hospital, where gaps were identified. This project was completed by developing and integrating a guideline-based checklist into the inpatient medical record. A pre-post design was utilized to evaluate the impact of this intervention. In the pre-implementation phase, a chart review of 77 inpatient records was conducted to assess adherence to guideline-based care. In the post-implementation phase, the checklist was implemented and used to document care provided to heart failure patients. Both pre- and post-intervention charts were reviewed for 30-day readmissions and all-cause mortality. Additionally, a Likert-scale survey was administered to providers to evaluate the perceived effectiveness of the checklist. In both pre- and post-intervention groups, more than 70% of patients received appropriate education. Notably, follow-up appointment attendance increased by 11% in the post-intervention group. Data from the provider survey and 30-day outcome review are pending final evaluation on August 16. These findings suggest checklist-driven, guideline-based care can enhance care coordination and may serve as a scalable model for improving outcomes in heart failure management. The objective of this presentation is to demonstrate how integrating evidence-based guidelines through a user-friendly checklist can improve care coordination and positively impact outcomes in heart failure management.