Reducing Hospital Readmissions: A Strategy

This assignment explores the pressing issue of hospital readmissions, highlighting their negative impact on the healthcare system and patients. It delves into various strategies for mitigating readmissions, emphasizing the importance of strong communication between healthcare providers and patients, expansion of services to non-medical providers, utilization of technology to manage patient populations, and optimized staffing approaches. The assignment concludes by underscoring the need for integrated solutions to improve patient care outcomes and reduce readmission rates.

Running Head: REDUCING READMISSIONS 1
REDUCING READMISSIONS: A BRIEF TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
STUDENT:
INSTITUTION:
DATE:

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Introduction
Research has indicated that one out five hospitalizations in health care are followed by
readmissions. 9 out of 10 of the readmissions are unplanned though 75% of the readmissions can
be prevented. The readmissions hurt the health care system as a result of high cost. The
readmissions which are avoidable are caused by failures in communication and the entire process
in health care. It is found out that almost 80% of the errors in medical care involve
miscommunication during handoffs and patient transfers. It indicates that there is a need for
accurate, timely and practical communication at discharge to enhance patient care and control
wasteful spending.
Reducing readmissions
There is a great need for patients to be accountable for every patient after their discharge to
reduce readmissions. Readmissions are costly and currently attracts fines which sum to more
than 0.3% of health care base payments made to hospitals in the U.S.A (Hansen, et al. 2011).
Health care institutions to engage patients after discharge and provide a care summary of
transition. The care transitions to reduce readmissions are discussed below.
i. Strong and interactive communication
Hospitals should handle the transition of patient situations whether at home, nursing facility or
any other location. Communication should not be focused only on clinical information because it
is not sufficient for the family, post-acute provider or the patient for the keeping of track. For
instance, the family must know the current medications and scheduled follow-up appointments.
Information about medical history is necessary because a patient may, for example, skip follow-
ups or be non-compliant to medical prescriptions.

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ii. Expansion of reach to non-medical providers
Patients should have the requisite resources to complete health care plans. For example, a patient
with no support from family may require transportation to pick prescriptions and get to
scheduled appointments. Another example is the diabetic and heart failure patients because they
need specified nutrition needs (Jerant, et al. 2014). The non-medical providers will supply
transportation, cleaning and delivery services to support healthcare gaps. Hospitals should use
automated or manual methods to coordinate access to the essential services and resources.
iii. Employ appropriate technology to manage large number of patients
At times when the number of patients is large, hospitals should manage patients using systems
which will stratify them according to risk to include the potential for readmission at the points of
discharge and the other stages of recovery. An example of higher risk is a patient who misses
appointment after 48 hours that a similar patient who has not missed.
iv. Maximize staffing
When patients are managed according to the potential for readmission as identified earlier,
compliant patients have lower risks and consequently require a few staff for intervention.
Hospitals will be able to highly-tech interventions to high-risk patients and low-tech staff of
high-touch to high-risk patients. An example of a 27 years old patient with low risk can be
engaged by text messaging without consuming the employees (Hansen, et al. 2011).
Conclusion
In summing up, staffing shortages are always eminent, and the patient situations are becoming
complex at inflated rates. Some patients are left vulnerable to avoidable readmissions due to the

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lack of appropriate staff to coordinate transitions. Technological solutions should be employed to
rationalize communication at transitions and optimize resources. It will enable an improved
continuity of patient and care outcomes and reduce readmissions and the associated costs.

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References
Anthony Jerant, Rahman Azari, Thomas Nesbitt. (2014). Reducing the cost of frequent hospital
admissions for congestive heart failure. Medical care, 1234-1245.
Luke Hansen, Young Robert, Hinami Keiki, Alicia Leung, Mark Williams. (2011). Interventions
to reduce 30-day rehospitalization: a systematic review. Annals of internal medicine, 520-
528.