Heart failure discharge instructions

Heart failure is a condition in which the heart can't pump enough blood to the body's other organs. The heart continues to work, but not as efficiently as it should, which causes symptoms including fatigue, difficulty breathing and swelling in the legs and feet. It is a progressive, chronic illness that can reduce life expectancy.

It is important for people with heart failure to follow instructions, such as:

• Taking their prescribed medications
• Knowing what to do if their heart failure symptoms worsen
• Following a diet and activity plan

Discharge instructions should be provided to all heart failure patients when they are discharged from the hospital. A higher percent of providing discharge instructions may indicate that a hospital provides a higher level of care.

About this measure

The first graph below displays the percent of heart failure patients who were given complete heart failure discharge instructions with all recommended information when they left the hospital. The second graph shows a trend over time for this measure.

Northwestern Memorial Hospital wants to provide the most up to date data. For this measure, our data is from a more recent time period than the benchmark time period.

Note: In this case, a higher number is better.