N-HeFT™ News

THE N-HeFT™ BRIDGE PROJECT: ADVANCING HEART FAILURE MANAGEMENT IN THE LONG TERM AND SKILLED NURSING CARE SETTING

December 1, 2008-November 30, 2009, Cleveland, Ohio

Now in its second year, The Bridge Project has moved from long term care to the skilled nursing facility. With a strong interdisciplinary team and expertise in the design and implementation of continuing education programs provided by N-HeFT™, The Bridge Project continues to close the gap in HF management between evidence and practice in the LTC and SNF setting.  N-HeFT™ and CWRU are collaborating with The Gardens of McGregor and Amasa Stone, Eliza Bryant Village, University Hospitals Hanna House, and Montefiore in Greater Cleveland with the help of a grant from the McGregor Foundation to develop this initiative.

The goal of The Bridge Project is to improve the quality of care for older adults with heart failure, decrease hospitalization, and improve their quality of life.  The program combines education on best practices and a strong partnership between facility staff and administration to develop, implement, support, and sustain the program through physician and nurse champions and developed HF protocols that include HF rounds.

N-HeFT™ plans to disseminate the program to other facilities by providing a “Train the Trainer” component with a training manual and supporting tools along with consulting support for implementation. 

PRIMARY CARE PARTNERSHIPS TO PREVENT HEART DISEASE IN WOMEN: THE HEART TRUTH-OHIO

October 1, 2008-September 30, 2011, Ohio

Heart Failure affects nearly 5.3 million Americans with an estimated 660,000 new cases each year, especially older adults.

The Heart Healthy Survey has reported that Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati are ranked among the 10 worst metropolitan areas in America. Women in Cleveland and its suburbs have a higher body mass index, rates of diabetes, blood pressure and death from heart disease than women in any of the other 200 metropolitan areas. At the same time, an alarmingly few number of women know that heart disease is the number one cause of death for women in the United States and that 1 of 4 women will die of heart disease. Even worse, there is a wide gap between knowledge and the application of evidenced-based guidelines and practice in the care and treatment of these women by their primary care providers.

CWRU, under the co-direction of George Kikano, MD, (primary care) and Ileana L. Piña, MD, (cardiology), have joined forces to improve risk factor screening, assessment prevention, early intervention and treatment for women at risk for heart disease in the primary care outpatient setting in Ohio. Together they assembled a team to create The Heart Truth-Ohio, designed to close the gap between knowledge and practice in the state of Ohio.  Using materials provided in The Heart Truth Program, their team  provides physicians and related health care professionals a number of educational opportunities to increase their awareness of risk factors for heart disease and improve patient care for women aged 40-75 in the outpatient setting.

The program also provides various tools and techniques needed to counsel women on risk factors and advice on making heart-healthy lifestyle choices.  The goal of this initiative is to increase knowledge, counseling skills and treatment, of women according to American Heart Association Guidelines for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Women.

Armed with The Heart Truth materials, the Heart Truth-Ohio team will offer educational activities throughout 2009 in various Northeastern Ohio locations to meet the needs of the busy primary care provider. Grand rounds, video teleconferences, dinner meetings, and live conferences will be offered to these providers along with continuing education credits. Online modules will also be available at http://nheft.org/ to address a number of topics from an overview of heart disease to behavioral aspects of CVD prevention.  Case applications will help bridge the gap between knowledge and practice. An email link is also available on the web site for providers to pose questions of The Heart Truth Faculty.  Through an intense dissemination process, The Heart Truth-Ohio team hopes to create a network of primary care providers in Ohio joined together in the fight against heart disease in women.

Click here for schedule of events.

Curriculum for Allied Health Professionals has been released for Home Care, Nursing Homes, Geriatrics, Palliative Care and Hospice Teams. This curriculum offers

a chronic care model and includes support tools.