Because unplanned hospital readmissions put patients at risk, burden families and add to the cost of health care, many medical professionals are taking steps to reduce them. To push the effort, new Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rules impose escalating penalties that decrease a hospital’s Medicare payments if patients are readmitted within 30 days of discharge.
Last week on Vector, we reported research suggesting that some readmissions may be incorrectly classified as preventable (and thereby penalized), particularly at pediatric hospitals. But what steps can be taken to reduce the number of truly preventable readmissions?
One step, highlighted here last week, is making post-discharge communications much simpler with texts and emails. But how can hospitals make sure their patients are ready to go home? A new study published in the International Journal for Quality in Health Care finds that in pediatric settings, the answers may be found in parents’ perceptions, which turn out to be good predictors of an unplanned readmission. …