• Login
    View Item 
    •   UMB Digital Archive
    • School of Nursing
    • Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects
    • View Item
    •   UMB Digital Archive
    • School of Nursing
    • Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of UMB Digital ArchiveCommunitiesPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    Display statistics

    Impact of Automated Post-Discharge Phone Calls on 30-Day Hospital Readmission Rates

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Thumbnail
    Name:
    Polla_PostDischargeCalls_2019.pdf
    Size:
    3.341Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    Download
    Author
    Polla, Tara
    Advisor
    Akindate Bimbola F.
    Date
    2019-05
    Type
    DNP Project
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Other Titles
    Post-Discharge Phone Calls
    Abstract
    Background Reducing 30-day readmissions is a priority among hospitals nationwide as it is tied to reimbursement and used as a surrogate quality indicator. As an all-payor system, Maryland has the added challenge to reduce 30-day readmissions to below the national rate to be in compliance with its contract with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Local Problem Readmission rates among trauma patients in a level-1 trauma center of a large, urban academic medical center in Baltimore, MD have been increasing over the first few months of 2018. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to implement and evaluate the effect an automated post-discharge phone call program had on 30-day readmissions and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems scores on an acute care trauma unit. Interventions This project implementation took place over nine weeks. The first week was dedicated to staff education. Patients were given verbal as well as written materials regarding the phone call they were going to receive during their discharge education by the nurse. In weeks 29, post-discharge phone calls went out to adult patients being discharged home within 24-72 hours. Three attempts were made to contact the patient, after which a message was left for them to call back. Patients were asked questions about their current health status, follow-up care, medications, instructions, and satisfaction. If they answered negatively, the system would trigger an alert and a registered nurse would follow-up with them the same day. Demographic data including age, gender, primary diagnosis, and mechanism of injury was collected weekly along with survey completion rates, number and type of alerts generated. Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores and 30-day readmission rates were evaluated one month after the last phone call. Results 104 patients were called, 55.7% of patients completed the survey. 44.8% of those who completed triggered an alert. 29% of alerts were related to follow-up care, 23% related to instructions. Mean age was 6.6 years higher for patients who completed the survey compared to those that did not (40.9 vs 34.3). Readmissions decreased by 2.9%. There were no statistically significant associations between completing the survey and readmission rates (p=0.46). Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems scores increased in two categories: 4.6% in Care Transitions and 9.6% in Good Understanding of Managing Health. There was not a large enough sample size to determine significance. Conclusions Automated post-discharge phone calls have the potential to reduce 30-day readmission and improve patient satisfaction scores. Further analysis of additional data should be completed at six months to test for a significant association between survey completion, readmission rates, and HCAHPS scores. The potential costs of savings of this project was estimated to be $181,500. Future similar quality improvement projects should be aimed at increasing the number of follow-up appointments and improve patient understanding of instructions before discharge home.
    Keyword
    post-discharge phone call
    Patient Discharge
    Patient Readmission
    Identifier to cite or link to this item
    http://hdl.handle.net/10713/9819
    Collections
    Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

    entitlement

     
    DSpace software (copyright © 2002 - 2023)  DuraSpace
    Quick Guide | Policies | Contact Us | UMB Health Sciences & Human Services Library
    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.