Components of heart failure management in home care; a literature review.
BACKGROUND
Patients with heart failure (HF) need long-term and complex care delivered by healthcare professionals in primary and secondary care. Although guidelines on optimal HF care exist, no specific description of components that are applied for optimal HF care at home exist. The objective of this review was to describe which components of HF (home) care are found in research studies addressing homecare interventions in the HF population.


METHODS
The Pubmed, Embase, Cinahl, and Cochrane databases were searched using HF-, homecare services-, and clinical trial-related search terms.


RESULTS
The literature search identified 703 potentially relevant publications, out of which 70 articles were included. All articles described interventions with two or more of the following components: multidisciplinary team, continuity of care and care plans, optimized treatment according to guidelines, educational and counselling of patients and caregivers, and increased accessibility to care. Most studies (n=65, 93%) tested interventions with three components or more and 20 studies (29%) used interventions including all five components.


CONCLUSIONS
There a several studies on HF care at home, testing interventions with a variety in number of components. Comparing the results to current standards, aspects such as collaboration between primary care and hospital care, titration of medication, and patient education can be improved.
Linköping University, Norrköping, Sweden. tiny.jaarsma@liu.se
Tiny
T
Jaarsma
Maaike
M
Brons
Imke
I
Kraai
Marie Louise
ML
Luttik
Anna
A
Stromberg
D003266:Continuity of Patient Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000628:therapy*; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000458:organization & administration