Heart Helper Pilot

In this Commonwealth funded pilot project, we partnered with 3 Victorian health services to develop and test a service delivery model to help people with heart failure after a hospital admission. The project focussed on increasing patient self-management and trialled the use of a combined workforce – where staff with and without heart failure experience worked together to deliver care. 

Participating health services succeeded by partnering with consumers, collaborating with each other, and being open to adapt their model as they learnt.

Key outcomes

Overall, the project supported 798 clients with heart failure by providing personalised support and empowering patients to self-manage their heart failure. 42% of these were clients from a culturally and linguistically diverse background. 

Participating health services trialled models adapted to their local needs and found great potential in supporting clients with conditions other than heart failure (eg. chronic diseases). Two health services went on to embed additional roles in their Hospital Admissions Risk Programs. 

Examples of the types of support provided by the model included:

• Heart failure education 
• Improving confidence to engage in the community
• Helping with daily living such as shopping, cooking and cleaning
• Connecting with local social and community groups
• Transport to medical appointments
• Helping find or return to a hobby such as baking, gardening or painting
• Organising social outing with other clients living with heart failure

We saw key improvements:

• Fewer people returned to hospital after going home 
• Patient reported outcomes improved including health, function, wellbeing and quality of life

Our project evaluation showed for every $1 invested in the pilot at a health service level, a return of $2.36 was achieved.