In view of the high return admission rate to our county ED for heart failure, we hypothesized that our higher risk patient population might realize a decrease in the return admission rate as a benefit from early ED administration of nesiritide. We also acknowledged that the safety of nesiritide in our patient population had not been well established. Thus, we opted to test the hypothesis that an 8-hour ED infusion of nesiritide [in addition to protocol specified standard therapy] in ADHF patients from an urban patient population consisting of predominately African Americans and Hispanics will decrease 30-day readmission rates without provoking harm.