CHF patient education

[cardiacmadeline, RN]

I am curious as to how other facilities go about doing CHF teaching. Obviously if someone is admitted with CHF, we do the education. If it is a secondary diagnosis, we also do teaching. We do a printout of the BNP results daily on our patients and if it is elevated we are supposed to do HF teaching and make sure the core measures are charted as taught. My problem is when CHF is not the primary diagnosis, and the doctors have not mentioned anything whatsoever to the patient stating they have heart failure, we are supposed to go to the patient, hand them education on heart failure when they don't know they have it in the first place! This just does not feel right to me, the doctors should be the one explaining their diagnosis to the patient. What do others think? Am I right in thinking this way?

[scg08rn]

I am a fairly new nurse and not well experienced, however, it doesn't feel right to me either. Doctors should tell their patients they have CHF. You call the doctor to tell them their labs, they diagnose them with CHF order all these medications stat, you go to the patient to give these medications along with explaining to them that they have CHF. That's scarey for the patients. The doctor should come to the patient and explain to them their diagnoses and all the treatment options available. I remember in school "nurses don't diagnose, they treat"

[Jumelle]

The Doctor should be the one telling the patient first hand that he/she has CHF and teaching should follow thereafter by Nurses.

[steelcityrn, RN]

I agree, this is the physicians resposibility.