Tuesday, October 14, 2014
United Hospital Fund Report Details Lessons Learned in Reducing Avoidable Hospital Readmissions
A new United Hospital Fund report details lessons learned from a multi-hospital initiative focused on reducing readmissions. The initiative involved seven New York City hospitals in its first stage, in which participants worked to identify the factors behind readmission, and four hospitals in its second stage, in which participants designed and implemented interventions to tackle opportunities identified in the first stage.
According to the report Reducing Hospital Readmissions: Lessons from a Multi-Hospital Initiative, multiple strategies are necessary to address readmissions because many factors contribute to them. But when all these strategies are aligned, readmission reduction activities were most successful. One participating hospital reduced its 30-day all-cause readmission rate by 14 percent (from 14 percent in 2012 to 12 percent in 2013). Another facility decreased its risk-adjusted readmission rate for acute myocardial infarction patients, its chosen focus for the initiative, by more than a third (from 16 percent in 2011 to 10 percent in 2012)....