Transcript of Chronic Heart Failure.
[Music]
Text overlay: Leading Better Value Care (LBVC) is a NSW Health program supporting the system to deliver value based healthcare.
This story shows the impact of the chronic heart failure initiative for clinicians and patients at St. Vincent's Hospital Network.
Carol Whitfield: My name is Carol Whitfield and I'm the Heart Failure Nurse Practitioner at St. Vincent's Hospital. Well I see patients at home who've been in hospital with heart failure, these are people who often get readmitted to hospital with ongoing problems with their heart. So the the Leading Better Value Care has made us focus I guess a bit more on looking after the patients in the places that they want to be, so that we can better care for these patients out of hospital and keep them at home.
Heart failure is increasing because people are living longer. People come into hospital with heart failure but often there's things that we can do at home that can keep them at home. Looking out for how much fluid they're drinking, just optimising their medication, hopefully saving money by keeping people out of hospital. You feel much better off with your family around you, your friends around you. Tony's been in hospital a number of times, in fact, in the 12 months before he was referred to us he was in hospital with heart problems seven times in that 12 month period.
Tony McHatton: When Carol comes Carol does everything and talks to the specialists and she gets in touch with my own doctor and sends a blood test to my own doctor. Otherwise yes I'd be in hospital from 28 to 40, 45 days, and you work out the cost of that, it's quite extravagant. There's people sicker than me that needs beds, let me tell you. Where Carol gets on the phone and it basically fixes the problem or says look I'll be there to see you tomorrow but apart from that everything's okay so just keep going the way you are. It's learning how to cope with living with what I've got and not having to go to hospital.
Carol: Teaching them about how to manage their lifestyle and how to manage when things get bad, they may notice that their legs are swelling or they're more breathless, then we can get them to contact us, try and change treatment and keep them at home.
Arlie McHatton: I feel more confident in myself that what I'm going to do is right, but I also have the backup of ringing up and saying look is this okay and she gives me the okay to do it.
Carol: He's significantly improved, he feels well and he hasn't been back to hospital since. In fact, he actually got to Hawaii before Christmas for a holiday with his family.
Arlie: It was virtually our last holiday, he said well if I die over there, he said just burn me and bring me home as ashes, but we went, we had a good time.
Carol: He's very clear he does not want to come back to hospital. So he's good now, he weighs himself every day, he monitors his medications, he monitors his blood pressure and between him and his wife, they're able to monitor things very carefully and ring me if there's any concerns and I can either manage things over the phone or go out and see them and check on him and make some changes to his treatment and keep him out of hospital, keep him well.