Reducing Readmissions
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Readmission of patients recently discharged after hospitalization represents an expensive and all-too-common lapse in the quality of care delivered in the U.S. health care system. National data reveal that one in four Medicare patients admitted for chronic diseases will return to the hospital within 30 days of being discharged. There are thousands of reasons for this, but experts agree they can be avoided.
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Seventy-seven hospital teams representing 15 AF4Q Alliances participated in the reducing readmissions portion of this initiative.
- Sixty percent of participating AF4Q hospitals improved in reducing readmission within 30 days for heart failure patients.
- Those teams avoided approximately 486 readmissions within 30 days of hospital discharge. Top performers in reducing readmissions are Lovelace Westside Hospital in Albuquerque and Penobscot Bay Medical in Maine, each with 17 percent reductions and Memorial Medical Center in Wisconsin and Truman Medical Center Lakewood–Kansas City, each with 15 percent reductions.
- Fifty-eight hospital teams improved in their adherence to all components in the Measure of Ideal Care (MIC), and as a result, 18,311 heart failure patients received all four measures of ideal care.
- By the end of the collaborative, nearly 95 percent of the hospital teams in Reducing Readmissions had successfully standardized their registration systems to collect self-reported race, ethnicity, and language data.
