By Kelley Weiss
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-569017.mp3
Kansas City, MO – A local hospital will use a more than $3 million grant to help improve care for heart failure patients. KCUR's Kelley Weiss reports.
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The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute is giving the University of Kansas Hospital a $3.3 million grant to research ways to cut down the rate of re-hospitalization of heart failure patients.
Carol Smith, a KU Nursing School professor and the grant's principal investigator, says heart failure - a condition that limits the heart from pumping enough blood through the body - is manageable with some help. The grant, Smith says, will teach patients how to control the complicated disease and avoid hospitalization.
Carol Smith: "It can be overwhelming but we know that we can successfully have people self-manage and that they then really reduce their own hospitalizations."
Smith says the number of people with heart failure is on the rise - about 5 million people in the United States are living with the chronic illness. Two hundred patients will participate in KU's five year grant project.
Funding for health care coverage on KCUR has been provided by the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City.
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