Improving Pre-Transplant Experiences for ICU Patients on the Heart Transplant Registry

Problem: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are at risk of worsening of their cognitive, physical, and psychiatric functions (Mikkelsen, Netzer, & Iwashyna, 2019). Many heart transplant candidates are required to stay in the ICU for weeks or months prior to transplant surgery (UNOS, 2018), making them vulnerable to adverse outcomes such as infections, depression, and loss of functional status. “Prehabilitation” is a concept in healthcare referring to optimizing a patient’s functional status before a major surgery (Le Roy, Selvy, & Slim, 2016). Currently, there is neither a prehabilitation program nor an established resource bundle for nurses to utilize while caring for patients awaiting heart transplants in the ICU at the University of Kansas Health System. This unique patient population requires a holistic nursing approach to address physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs prior to transplant. A pre-transplant toolkit would assist to address these needs and may improve outcomes for heart transplant patients. Project Aims: (1) Elicit post-transplant patients’ perspectives about pre-transplant hospitalization, (2) Elicit nurses and transplant coordinators’ perspectives about pre-transplant hospitalization, and (3) Form recommendations for a pre-transplant toolkit for ICU nurses to meet pre-transplant patients’ needs in functioning and global quality of life. Project Method: This quality improvement project will be conducted at the University of Kansas Health System (TUKHS) main campus in Kansas City, Kansas. Heart transplant recipients who spent time in the Cardiac ICU prior to transplant surgery will be interviewed by telephone by the Project Director to obtain information about their ICU experiences prior to transplant. An electronic survey will be sent to Cardiac ICU nurses and heart transplant coordinators to obtain a nursing perspective of the needs of heart transplant candidates while in the ICU pre-transplant surgery. Data obtained from the surveys will be used by the Project Director to develop a nursing toolkit that address the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs of heart transplant patients prior to transplant surgery.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Kansas

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Heid, Kacie

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Peltzer, Jill

• Nursing
• heart transplant
• nursing care
• quality improvement

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright held by the author.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:17070

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/39332