Re-engineered Hospital Discharge Program Well-Received by Patients
August 2nd, 2017
A standardized, in-hospital discharge planning initiative, known as Project ReEngineered Discharge (RED), was established in 2007 and is promoted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. A recent study found favorable patient response to the program.
Project RED, which is designed to improve the discharge process to improve patient safety while reducing readmission rates and ED visits, involves a simple, color-coded plan providing information about medications, upcoming appointments, and a calendar of activities for the 30 days post-discharge.
An article published online by the Journal of Patient Experience reports that patients receiving the RED intervention felt more comfortable caring for themselves at home than patients who went through a standard discharge.
To determine that, Boston University Medical Center researchers reviewed data from surveys of patients who received the RED intervention when being discharged from an adult inpatient unit at an urban safety net hospital. They were compared to patients who received a standard discharge.
The RED intervention cohort was much more likely — 61% to 35% — to rate “very good” when asked their response to this item: "Instructions given about how to care for yourself at home.”
"Improving patient experience by helping them better understand how to care for themselves in the transition from hospital to home means that we're improving their overall quality of care while decreasing hospital readmission and decreasing the cost of care — which is our primary goal," explained senior author Brian Jack, MD, chief of family medicine at BMC who created the Project RED program.
Background information in the article discussed how expensive readmissions are for hospitals, pointing out that one in five Medicaid patients is readmitted within 30 days of discharge at a cost of $17 billion each year.
"In addition to the financial savings, working to decrease hospital readmission rates allows us to focus on improving all the factors that contribute to a healthy patient population," said lead author Ramon Cancino, MD, MSc.
CMS Hospital CoP Made Easy Series
This five-part webinar series will guide attendees through the entire CMS Hospital CoP manual and highlight the 2017 proposed changes in the IMPACT Act, the Hospital Improvement Act, and discharge planning. Our expert will also discuss significant changes made to the medical staff and board, radiology and nuclear medicine, utilization management, nursing, pharmacy, and more.
