Patient non-compliance with diet and medications is an important reason for changes in clinical status. Health care professionals should ensure that patients and their families understand their dietary restrictions, activity recommendations, prescribed medication regimen, and the signs and symptoms of worsening heart failure. National guidelines strongly support the role of patient education (Hunt, 2005). Despite this recommendation, comprehensive discharge instructions are rarely provided to eligible older patients hospitalized with heart failure (CMS National Heart Failure Project baseline data).

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• Bonow RO, Bennett S, Casey DE, Ganiats TG, Hlatky MA, Konstam MA, Lambrew CT, Normand ST, Piņa IL, Radford MJ, Smith AL, Stevenson L. ACC/AHA Clinical Performance Measures for Adults With Chronic Heart Failure: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Performance Measures (Writing Committee to Develop Heart Failure Clinical Performance Measures). J Am Coll Cardiol 2005;46:1144–78. (Available at http://www.acc.org and http://www.americanheart.org.)
• Hunt SA. ACC/AHA 2005 guideline update for the diagnosis and management of chronic heart failure in the adult: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines (Writing Committee to Update the 2001 Guidelines for the Evaluation and Management of Heart Failure). J Am Coll Cardiol 2005; 46(6):e1-82. (Availabile at: http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/112/12/e154 )

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