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A program at the University of Michigan Health System in which physicians and nurse practitioners visit patients after their transfer to a skilled nursing facility has smoothed transitions and reduced the average length of stay of older patients from 10.6 days to eight days.
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After the University of California San Francisco Medical Center began a heart failure readmission reduction program at its 559-bed main hospital, 30-day readmission rates for heart failure patients dropped 46%, from 24% in 2009 to 13% in 2011 and 11% in 2012.
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Recognizing that the inpatient staff can do only so much during a three-to-five-day hospital stay, the heart failure readmission reduction team at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center collaborates with post-acute providers and outpatient treatment centers to develop ways to improve transitions between levels of care and ensure that patients receive the same education on managing their conditions regardless of where they are receiving care.
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Just eight months after Sycamore Medical Center emergency department in Miamisburg, OH, launched a Lean project to improve patient flow in the emergency department, the percentage of patients who left without being seen dropped dramatically and the departments patient satisfaction scores rose to the 90th percentile.
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In the past, case managers and discharge planners have concentrated on how to get patients out of the hospital, but now they also need to focus on how to keep them from coming back, says Deborah Hale, CCS, CCDS, president and chief executive officer of Administrative Consultant Service, a healthcare consulting firm based in Shawnee, OK.
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A redesign of the care coordination department at Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee, IL, assigns utilization review tasks to dedicated nurses, freeing up case managers to spend more time with patients and develop a close working relationship with physicians to facilitate smooth and timely progression of care.
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In an effort to drive down health care expenditures, a key target of state legislatures and healthcare policy makers in recent years has been frequent users of the ED. The thought is that many of these patients are using the ED for routine or non-urgent care when they really should be opting for less-expensive care settings.
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A new study, led by researchers at the University of Michigan (UM) in Ann Arbor, suggests that clinicians might not be spending enough time discussing some of the most complex patients when they are handing off these cases during shift changes.
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In a concerted effort to improve patient care, payers and providers are collaborating to improve transitions of care and reduce readmissions.
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To help members of its Medicare Advantage Plan stay healthy, healthcare professionals at WellPoint make individual outbound calls to members with clinical gaps in care to remind them of what preventive measures they need.
