Heart Failure (HF) is a complex, chronic, debilitating syndrome affecting a significant portion of the population.  Despite significant study and resource allocation, provision of healthcare to patients with HF continues to pose heavy costs to the health care system, particularly through readmission to the hospital.  To date, there are no published risk assessment instruments for clinical nursing use that address this problem.  The purpose of this project was to develop an instrument to assist nurses in assessing the relative risk of hospital readmission for patients with HF.  A mailed survey comprised of 83 evidence-based factors associated with the readmission of patients with HF, was sent to 80 Advanced Practice Nurses (APN) in a Midwestern region.  Respondents were asked to determine the importance of, or to ‘weight' each of the 83 factors, using a six point Likert scale.  A total of 59 APNs (74%) responded.  The typical respondent was a 46-year-old female, who had been an RN for 21 years and an APN for six years.  Out of 83 potential evidence-based factors, most important were:  shortness of breath; NYHA Class IV; inability to comply with meds; severity of illness combined with functional status; decreased cognition-acute; weight gain; less than 30 days since discharge; increased edema; increased troponin; willful noncompliance with meds. These factors will serve as the basis for a clinical risk assessment tool to be used in a larger project about predicting the risk of hospital readmission in patients with HF.  Interventions can be tailored to address modifiable factors.  Interventions can be ‘dosed' for this patient's unique situation, so as to potentially reduce the risk for the adverse outcome of unplanned hospital readmission.