CLINICAL TRIAL
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Add like
Add dislike
Add to saved papers

Dramatic Reduction in 30-Day Readmissions Through High-Risk Screening and Two-Phase Interdisciplinary Care.

OBJECTIVES: Thirty-day readmissions are common, serious, and costly. Most important, often they are preventable. The purpose of this quality improvement study was to evaluate an interdisciplinary, two-phase intervention to reduce 30-day readmissions among high-risk medical patients. One or two high-risk patients were selected each weekday by a hospitalist using literature-based, locally tested criteria that included common medical illnesses, active psychiatric illness, and recent or recurrent hospital admissions.

METHODS: Patients admitted to 1 of 5 medical hospitalist teams were selected to receive the intervention; patients admitted to the 4 remaining teams were used for comparison. The two-phase care coordination intervention consisted of a daily interdisciplinary team meeting for the selected high-risk patients and postdischarge interventions that included outpatient care coordination until the patients' first follow-up appointment. The care plan addressed medical/geriatric assessment, social stability, medication reconciliation, nutritional needs, care coordination including future appointments/testing, and community services. Eighty-five patients in the intervention group were compared with 84 patients from the comparison group using propensity score matching. Patient characteristics were similar at baseline.

RESULTS: The intervention group demonstrated a reduction in 30-day readmissions by 52% (11 vs 23, P = 0.019). Length of stay was reduced: 5.5 days compared with 7.2 days ( P = 0.258).

CONCLUSIONS: This intervention produced a significant reduction in 30-day readmissions for high-risk patients and a trend for shorter lengths of stay compared with similarly matched patients. Future research trials are needed to verify these results.

Full text links

We have located links that may give you full text access.
Can't access the paper?
Try logging in through your university/institutional subscription. For a smoother one-click institutional access experience, please use our mobile app.

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

Mobile app image

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

All material on this website is protected by copyright, Copyright © 1994-2024 by WebMD LLC.
This website also contains material copyrighted by 3rd parties.

By using this service, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

Your Privacy Choices Toggle icon

You can now claim free CME credits for this literature searchClaim now

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app