ACNAP Courses on Heart Failure for Nurses

Introduction

Worldwide there are approximately 64 million patients diagnosed with heart failure (HF)¹ and the prevalence is rising globally. In addition to this, many more individuals live with symptoms of HF, yet remain undiagnosed.  Although recent advances in care and management of HF have improved outcomes² , 1- and 5-year mortality rates remain high³ with many patients living every day with poor health-related quality of life⁴. As the population gets older many patients suffer from multiple comorbidities besides HF, which require detection and more complex management. Optimal care of these patients requires advanced skills and competencies by the healthcare professionals providing this care.

Nurses are important members of the multidisciplinary heart failure team. They provide care to heart failure patients during hospital admission, support discharge, ongoing outpatient follow-up, and empowerment of patients and their families through education. They also liaise with multiple health and social care professionals, coordinate care and implement evidence-based practice.

The leading European Association of Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professions, endorsed by the Heart Failure Association of the ESC, have committed to providing the course series on heart failure that specifically target European nurses in their local context and language. The first series took place for nurses working in Russia, Spain and Serbia.

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Who should attend ?

Registered nurses who are currently working with heart failure patients or in heart failure care, who are not already specialised in heart failure, and who do not already have specific training in heart failure.

Learning objectives

Specific learning objectives of the HF nurse curriculum are based on the ACNAP core curriculum for nurses and allied professionals:

• Recognise patients with suspected HF and develop critical awareness of triggers for clinical deterioration
• Describe the importance of identifying the aetiology of HF and the diagnostic tools to make the diagnosis and monitor HF
• Learn the assessment and monitoring requirements of common symptoms and signs
• Apply educational theory to develop, implement and evaluate effective patient and family HF education
• Describe the self-care and lifestyle advice required to empower people living with heart failure manage and live well with their condition (including diet, exercise and travel)
• Manage the effective use of pharmacological and device therapies
• Understand how to competently and rapidly assess need and deliver care to the patient with acute HF
• Identify how to incorporate palliative and end of life care for the patient with heart failure and their family
• Recognise the importance of co-morbidity in HF and planning and delivering individualized patient care
• Identify the need for advanced strategies in the management of progressive HF
• Demonstrate leadership in HF nursing

Programme

This programme may be subject to small modifications.

Notes:

• The preparatory course module and pre-course assessment will need to be completed before attending the two-day course online.
• Each course will have no more than 50 participants to facilitate interaction.
• Course materials including PowerPoint presentations will be translated into the local language.
• To be eligible to the course participants must be a registered nurse, be an ACNAP member and speak Italian to native level.
• Participants will receive a certificate of completion only if they attend the two-day training course and complete every step in the programme.

Faculty

Course director

Maggie Simpson

Cardiology Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Scotland

Local course directors

Italy

Michela Barisone

• Head of health indicators monitoring of hospital and community settings at the Azienda Sociosanitaria Ligure ASL2 - Savona
• PhD in Innovative methodologies applied to communicable and chronic degenerative diseases in heart failure patients implanted with cardiac devices.
• Cardiology nurse until 2018

Pre-registration

Pre-registrations are now CLOSED.

This course is free. You will need to have a My ESC account and to be an ACNAP Associate (free) or ACNAP Silver (€45) member to pre-register (active membership at the date of the registration and until the end of the course).

All pre-registrations are reviewed by the Course Director to ensure a wide geographical spread throughout Italy / Italian speakers.

For any questions, please contact us at ACNAP@escardio.org

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Access the online course

The course will be accessible from the ESC eLearning platform and will open on 19 February 2024.

References

¹ GBD 2017 Disease and Injury Incidence and Prevalence Collaborators. Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990‐2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. Lancet 2018;392:1789-1858. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32279-7.

² McDonagh T.A, Metra M, Adamo M, Gardner R.S, Baumbach A, Böhm M, et al. 2021 Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure. Eur Heart J 2021;42:3599-3726. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehab368  

³ Ferreira JP, Kraus S, Mitchell S, et al. World Heart Federation Roadmap for Heart Failure. Glob Heart. 2019; 14: 197-214.

⁴ Stewart S, Ekman I, Ekman T et al. Population impact of heart failure and the most common forms of cancer: a study of 1 162 309 hospital cases in Sweden (1988 to 2004). Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes 2010: 573–580