Best Practices In Hospital Discharge To Reduce Preventable Readmissions

Main Category: IT / Internet / E-mail
Also Included In: Caregivers / Homecare
Article Date: 09 Nov 2007 - 11:00 PDT

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Research and Markets has announced the addition of "Best Practices in Hospital Discharge to Reduce Preventable Readmissions, Webinar on CD-ROM" to their offering.

Many hospital readmissions occur simply because the patient and/or the patient's caregiver did not clearly understand or comply with the original hospital discharge instructions. Whether the patient is transitioning from inpatient hospital care to a sub-acute facility or to their home, this transition of care moves the patient from an environment in which their care was tightly managed to one with a high reliance on self-care.

During Best Practices in Hospital Discharge to Reduce Preventable Readmissions, a 90-minute webinar on CD-ROM, two industry experts described how their organizations have fine-tuned their hospital discharge processes and the impact these steps have had on patient outcomes and satisfaction and readmission rates.

Nora Baratto, manager of the case management department at St. Peter's Hospital's CHOICES program, Albany, N.Y., and Michelle M. Berry, director of the Community Alternative Systems Agency (CASA) in Broome County, New York, provided the inside details on:

-- Their organization's best practices in hospital discharge policies and procedures that have improved this transition in care;

-- Using a community-oriented approach to an acute care mindset;

-- Utilizing a patient/client-directed approach versus a system/silo-directed approach;

-- Assessing and stratifying patients at discharge based on their risk level for readmission and assigning targeted interventions based on those risks;

-- Enhancing the communication between providers and patients to improve results;

-- Developing patient and caregiver education programs that lead to a clearly understood plan of care;

-- Structuring follow-up phone calls and/or home visits to ensure patient compliance;

-- Analyzing the impact of changes to hospital discharge procedures; and

-- Special considerations for the elderly population during hospital discharge.

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