Therapists Can Help Curb Hospital Re-Admissions

Note that Patient education is just as important as your therapists' education.

Reducing hospital re-admissions should be your top priority what with your patient outcomes and even survey results on the line. And curbing readmits will become all the more important with pay for performance expected soon.

But your team of therapists can certainly help your home health agency in this direction.

It goes without saying that your home health agency should be keeping track of the top reasons for patient education and target those in staff training. Here we can cite the example of Amedisys Inc, an HHA chain based in Baton Rouge, La., which found out that falls were one of the main reasons behind hospital re-admissions.

According to Kim Marryott Lee, corporate director for rehab research and quality for Amedisys, "So we've had a big push in the company to identify fall risk factors, educate the community and our personnel, and follow up with focused interventions."

Amedisys makes a point to be on the lookout for fall risks in the physical home environment like slippery floors and clutter. But clinicians are also trained to check for other risks such as vision problems, medications that could cause dizziness and cardiac issues that could lead to falls.

That apart, one should keep a watch on other conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic heart failure, diabetes, and infections (both wound and catheter infections). And do remember that your own HHA's readmission stats may reveal other red-flag diagnoses.

What you can do: Therapist Steve Allred, vice president of clinical development for Atlanta-based home health care chain Gentiva Health Services Inc., says that to exercise good preventive measures, one needs to standardize one's care. According to Allred, "When we have a post-joint replacement patient, we do x, y. and z every time - that way the patient is not dependent on a particular expert clinician."

Provides free weekly newswire for homecarenews.inhealthcare.com/hot-topics patient education and offers learning opportunity about homecarenews.inhealthcare.com/money-matters/home-health-coding-double-check-documentation-or-risk-low-vision-downcoding home health coding that keeps connected to the latest developments in health-oriented services.