Heart Failure: Management of decompensation (Guidelines) | Right Decisions

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Heart Failure: Management of decompensation (Guidelines)

Announcements and latest updates

Welcome to the Right Decision Service (RDS) newsletter for August 2024.

Contingency planning for RDS outages

Following the recent RDS outages, Tactuum and the RDS team have been reviewing the learning from these incidents. We are committed to doing all we can to ensure a positive outcome by strengthening the RDS to make it fully robust and clinically resilient for the future.

We would like to invite you to a webinar on 26^th September 3-4 pm on national and local contingency planning for future RDS outages. Tactuum and the RDS team will speak about our business continuity plans and the national contingency arrangements we are putting in place. This will also be a space to share local contingency plans, ideas and existing good practice. We would also like to gather your views on who we should send communications to in the event of future outages.

I have sent a meeting request for this date to all editors – please accept or decline to indicate attendance, and please forward on to relevant contacts. You can also contact Olivia.graham@nhs.scot directly to register your interest in participating.

2.National IV fluid prescribing calculator

This UK CA marked calculator is now live at https://righdecisions.scot.nhs.uk/ivfluids . It has been developed by a multiprofessional steering group of leads in IV fluids management, as part of the wider Modernising Patient Pathways Programme within the Centre for Sustainable Delivery. It aims to address a known cause of clinical error in hospital settings, and we hope it will be especially useful to the new junior doctors who started in August.

Please do spread the word about this new calculator and get in touch with any questions.

New toolkits

The following toolkits are now live;

Gender identity healthcare: adults and young people standards. (https://rightdecisions.scot.nhs.uk/genderidentity ) Note that this toolkit includes self-evaluation forms for each standard. A Scottish Government launch of these standards, together with the toolkit and NES educational resources, is planned for 3^rd September.
Care Inspectorate staffing method framework.
Vascular surgery pathways from the Modernising Patient Pathways Programme within the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Delivery.

Updated guidance on current and future Medical Device Regulations

We have updated and simplified this guidance within our standard operating procedures. We have clarified the guidance on how to determine whether an RDS tool is a medical device, and have provided an interactive powerpoint slideset to steer you through the process.

Guide to six stages of RDS toolkit development

We have developed a guide to support editors and toolkit leads through the process of scoping, designing, delivering, quality assuring and implementing a new RDS toolkit. We hope this will help in project planning and in building shared understanding of responsibilities throughout the full development process. The guide emphasises that the project does not end with launch of the new toolkit. Implementation, communication and evaluation are ongoing activities throughout the lifetime of the toolkit.

Training sessions for new editors (also serve as refresher sessions for existing editors) will take place on the following dates:

Thursday 5 September 1-2 pm
Wednesday 24 September 4-5 pm
Friday 27 September 12-1 pm

To book a place, please contact Olivia.graham@nhs.scot, providing your name, organisation, job role, and level of experience with RDS editing (none, a little, moderate, extensive.)

7 Evaluation projects

Dr Stephen Biggart from NHS Lothian has kindly shared with us the results of a recent survey of use of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Anaesthesia toolkit. This shows that the majority of consultants are using it weekly or monthly, mainly to access clinical protocols, with a secondary purpose being education and training purposes. They tend to find information by navigating by specialty rather than keyword searching, and had some useful recommendations for future development, such as access to quick reference guidance.

We’d really appreciate you sharing any other local evaluations of RDS in this way – it all helps to build the evidence base for impact.

If you have any questions about the content of this newsletter, please contact his.decisionsupport@nhs.scot If you would prefer not to receive future newsletters, please email Olivia.graham@nhs.scot and ask to be removed from the circulation list.

With kind regards

Right Decision Service team

Healthcare Improvement Scotland

Audience

Highland HSCP
Primary and Secondary Care

If you have any issues with TAM, please click:

Pathway

Education

Disease process
Fluid and weight management
Early warning signs (traffic lights)
Medication concordance
Cardiac rehabilitation
Immunisation
Social support

Cardiac devices

The choice of device will be decided by the cardiology team based on the following criteria:

Implantable Defibrillator (ICD) Primary Indications

QRS <130mms
Ejection fraction < 35% (equivalent to moderate/severe LVSD)

Cardiac Resynchronisation Therapy (CRT +/- D)

QRS >130mms
Ejection fraction <35% (equivalent to moderate/severe LVSD)

Referral to nurse led heart failure service

The Nurse Led Heart Failure Service provides a comprehensive care package for heart failure patients, working in partnership between primary and secondary care.

Referrals can be made by any member of the multidisciplinary team as long as the following criteria are met:

Patient must have documented evidence of heart failure due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD) (either by echo, MUGA scan or angiogram).

Plus

Be symptomatic despite medical therapy

Or

Had a recent hospital admission due to heart failure

Ultimately- patient must be willing to be part of the service.

Benefits can include

Education- to detect early warning signs and symptoms and to enable self management
Medication optimization
On-going support for patient and carer
Palliative Care Support

For more details please contact your local Heart Failure Nurse or contact the main Heart Failure Office on 01463 704628 or email nhsh.heartfailureservice@nhs.scot

Patient name and CHI number needed for referrals.

Abbreviations

Abbreviation	Meaning
ACE inhibitor	Angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors
ARB	Angiotensin receptor blockers
ECG	Electrocardiogram
LVSD	Left ventricular systolic dysfunction
CHSS	Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland

Last reviewed: 04/10/2023

Next review date: 31/10/2026

Author(s): Cardiology.

Version: 2

Approved By: TAMSG of the ADTC

Reviewer name(s): Prof Stephen Leslie, Consultant Cardiologist.

Document Id: TAM132

Related guidelines

Related resources

Further information for Health Care Professionals

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References

Further information for Patients

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Patient information can be accessed

Self-management information

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