Health and Wellness Informatics News
UVA Health’s Medicine Home program effectively reduced hospitalizations and readmission. The program resulted in a 30% admission drop and a 46% drop in readmission.
Overall it contributed to a 20% reduction in care costs. Recent studies suggest that 20% cost of care in hospitalizations, emergency department utilization, and hospital readmissions adhere to only 1% of the patient.
At the University of Virginia, the readmission rate for costly and complex medical conditions was 17% and 18% respectively in 2017. It will put the institution at the 50 percentile among similar healthcare institutes in the state.
This was a dire problem because of two main reasons. First, the readmission patients require time and resources that may help more patients. However, he second is from a business perspective; the readmission of patients takes a fair amount from the institute’s revenue.
Teresa Radford, RN, is the clinical program coordinator at UVA Health and is actively looking into the problem. According to him, 20% of hospitalizations are preventable with little effort. UVA Health also has an opportunity to fill the gap by improving the quality of care. This will result in reduced readmission and help patients with complex health.
UVA, as an action, builds a team of experts to explore the practices to improve the health of complex health and others in need. They also started investigating the frequent readmission of patients’ histories.
The investigation results in finding a common physical and behavioral diagnosis. The patients are often dealing with unstable or homeless, lack of transportation, and food insecurity. Other teams also believe that their health plans have the potential to improve their health and reduce the rate of readmission.
UVA Health’s Medicine Home program started in 2017 with 10 patients with cell disease. These patients account for 7% of the readmission and cost $ 1 million annually. The program also hit a great success in just 12 months, with readmissions decreasing by 46% and admissions dropping by 30%.
The program saved 20% cost of hospitalizations and increased the collective strength of these patients in general.