Readmission Reduction Program: Improving Patient Outcomes at EAMC

This report analyzes a Readmission Reduction Program, focusing on reducing unplanned hospital readmissions. It highlights the negative impacts of readmissions, including patient suffering, financial burdens, and strain on healthcare resources. The program aims to evaluate the causes of readmissions at East Alabama Medical Center, focusing on factors like inadequate discharge planning, lack of outpatient services, and insufficient community support. The report emphasizes the role of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) penalties in encouraging hospitals to improve patient care before discharge. It also proposes quality control measures, staff training, and improved patient education to enhance patient outcomes and hospital reputation. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of outstanding in-patient care, community support, and access to outpatient services for reducing readmissions, improving patient well-being, and optimizing healthcare finances. References from various research papers are also provided to support the findings.

Running head: READMISSION REDUCTION PROGRAM
READMISSION REDUCTION PROGRAM
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1
READMISSION REDUCTION PROGRAM
Readmissions or unplanned admission rates are considered to have huge negative impact
on a number of aspects. This affects the quality of the life of the patients and their family
members. Their suffering increases when the stressful periods continue for long number of days.
This aspect results in development of depression and grief among the close member of the
patients who are undergoing the stressful situations form long. They undergo depression when
they visualize their dear ones go through repeated periods of pain and harassment. Moreover,
there remains huge outflow of financial assets for the patients and family members (Leppin et al.
2014). Moreover, the healthcare organizations also have to provide assets to the readmitted
patients that they could have utilized for another patient who had been admitted due to
emergency conditions. Therefore, readmissions to hospitals result in mental, physical and
financial suffering to citizens and programs are very important to overcome such situations.
The readmission reduction program should first evaluate the issues for which there are
reputed readmissions to the East Alabama Medical Center. The program should make sure that
they develop proper evaluation framework by which they can identify the practices of the
healthcare stuffs and the decision taken by the hospital authority that are resulting in repeated
readmissions. This trend would help in taking initiatives by which the identified issues can be
handled properly or the sources of the issues can be eliminated or modified for betterment. Often
researchers have stated that the main causes of readmissions are improper hospital in care during
the first stay of the patient. Inadequate discharge planning, lack of access to outpatient services,
inadequate community support as well as a cumulative effect of all - result in repeated
readmissions (Tsugawa et al. 2017). Often improper health education given to patients also
makes them exposed to risks of readmissions. Therefore, penalty systems are imposed by the
CMS (The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) as part of the readmission reduction

2
READMISSION REDUCTION PROGRAM
program so that the hospitals and healthcare staffs would no longer release and discharge their
patients without analyzing and evaluating the patients’ health properly. The program would help
in making the healthcare staffs and hospitals extra careful in determining the condition of the
patients before realizing them. This would lessen the chances of readmission of the patients.
Moreover, this program would also help in establish quality control measures. Quality and safety
of the practices of the healthcare staffs, policies and rules of the hospitals and training for the
healthcare staffs would be introduced so that readmissions lessen (Damiani et al. 2015). This
would make East Alabama Medical Center more renowned among the citizens as the best
hospital providing the safest care. If this program becomes successful, it would lead to fame of
the hospitals wherein it would be the first choice for patients when they become ill. Customer
trust would be gained and hence revenue income will be higher (Aizawa, Imai and Fushimi
2015). Such program will include ensuring of outstanding hospital in patient care, improved
community support, developed access to outpatient services as well as combination of all. This
will ensure that the government would not have to spend money on conditions that can be
avoided and hence would help in releasing those finances on fresh patient cases.
Therefore, the trend would be helpful for developing the mental, physical and financial
stability of the citizens. It would lessen the healthcare finances and monetary flow of the
hospitals and the governments. Therefore, more patients can be treated with the saved money.
Moreover, the better the patient care, the more would be fame of East Alabama Medical Center
which will result in more patient admissions and hence revenue income will be higher.

3
READMISSION REDUCTION PROGRAM
References:
Aizawa, H., Imai, S. and Fushimi, K., 2015. Factors associated with 30-day readmission of
patients with eart failure from a Japanese administrative database. BMC cardiovascular
disorders, 15(1), p.134.
Damiani, G., Salvatori, E., Silvestrini, G., Ivanova, I., Bojovic, L., Iodice, L. and Ricciardi, W.,
2015. Influence of socioeconomic factors on hospital readmissions for heart failure and acute
myocardial infarction in patients 65 years and older: evidence from a systematic review. Clinical
interventions in aging, 10, p.237.
Leppin, A.L., Gionfriddo, M.R., Kessler, M., Brito, J.P., Mair, F.S., Gallacher, K., Wang, Z.,
Erwin, P.J., Sylvester, T., Boehmer, K. and Ting, H.H., 2014. Preventing 30-day hospital
readmissions: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials. JAMA internal
medicine, 174(7), pp.1095-1107.
Tsugawa, Y., Jena, A.B., Figueroa, J.F., Orav, E.J., Blumenthal, D.M. and Jha, A.K., 2017.
Comparison of hospital mortality and readmission rates for Medicare patients treated by male vs
female physicians. JAMA internal medicine, 177(2), pp.206-213.