Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) recently implemented a new discharge program aimed at reducing readmission rates, Kaiser Health News reports. Despite being one of the nation's premier teaching hospitals, in 2012, BIDMC discovered that it had one of the highest rates of readmission among Medicare patients nationwide. As result, the hospital was forced to pay federal fines totaling over $1 million.
Dr. Julius Yang, BIDMC's director of quality, told the source that many patients and their caregivers leave the hospital with unanswered questions. They often don't know who they should contact once they return home.
"Patients coming to our hospital, getting what we believed was high quality care, were coming back at an alarmingly high rate," Dr. Yang said. "In the hospital we provide a lot of […] expertise to manage every moment of their illness, but as soon as they leave, the complexity of their situation probably explodes."
With the help of a $5 million federal grant, the hospital created the Post-Acute Care Transitions (PACT) program. Under the system, nurses and pharmacists monitor the recovery process of high-risk Medicare patients and stay in contact with them and their caregivers to answer questions about medication or the healing process.
Since the implementation of the program, BIDMC has reduced its readmission rate by 25 percent, according to Dr. Yang. He added that the hospital's overall goal is not simply reducing the number of patients who come back through its doors, but also providing better care for older adults.
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