Like health systems across the nation, University of Missouri Health Care is looking at ways to reduce preventable hospital readmissions.
Public relations manager Mary Jenkins said MU Health launched an initiative in 2010 that focused on post-discharge calls to patients. The Columbia-based health system has set a goal of reducing “unplanned readmissions” by 10 percent in fiscal year 2014, Jenkins said in an email.
MU Health has established a number of projects aimed at meeting that goal:
- Testing ways to identify patients — while they are still in the hospital — who are at a higher risk for readmission because of their diagnoses, medications or other factors.
“This allows us to focus intensively on preparing these patients for their care after hospitalization,” Jenkins said.
- Using a team approach for the hospital discharge process that involves physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers and other health professionals.
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
“We recognize that preventable readmissions often occur because patients are confused about how to care for themselves after they leave the hospitals,” Jenkins said. The team works to help patients make arrangements for their care after leaving the hospital and aims to help patients understand how to use their medications.
- Calling patients returning home within 48 hours after being discharged from the hospital to check up on their progress and answer questions.
- Coordinating with skilled nursing facilities to follow up on patients with a higher risk of readmission.
- Reviewing the care of every patient readmitted with heart failure, heart attack and pneumonia to understand why the patient was readmitted and to develop additional processes to prevent readmissions.
Jenkins said another important step in reducing readmissions is simply letting patients know they can call if they have questions after leaving the hospital.
In addition, the MU School of Medicine is using a $13.3 million grant to develop a program that is expected to improve care and decrease costs for some 10,000 Medicare patients cared for through the MU Health system.
Project LIGHT2 — Leveraging Information Technology to Guide High Tech, High Touch Care — could become a national model, MU health officials said last July after the grant was awarded.
Jerry Parker, director of LIGHT2 and associate dean for research at the MU School of Medicine, said health information analysts will mine patient medical records to give physicians a “snapshot” of the health of individual patients and groups of patients. The information, he said, could indicate good health outcomes or that a health crisis is happening.
“It’s a new way of using health information before a crisis occurs,” Parker said.
The emphasis on using a team of health professionals to provide care or discharge information is another key element of LIGHT2.
Parker noted the current system usually brings doctors and patients together only when problems occur. He said the United States spends more money on health care — treatment for chronic conditions rather than preventive services — yet Americans generally score lower on most health indicators compared with other industrialized nations.
Jenkins said LIGHT2 is expected to save $17 million in health care costs over the next three years. Cost savings should come from reducing emergency room visits and unnecessary medical procedures and hospital admissions, officials said last July.
“To date, the LIGHT2 project is on track and has met our enrollment goals,” Jenkins said, “but we are still in the process of collecting data related to readmissions.”
Date: October 13, 2013