Reducing Readmissions with Outreach

Intermountain Healthcare, a 22-hospital system based in Salt Lake City, Utah, has always prioritized improving readmission rates in order to augment patient outcomes while avoiding extraneous costs. To streamline workflows and improve care transitions, Intermountain Healthcare introduced the Health Answers team in 2015, a group of nurses that provides support and advice to patients and families across the system.

CHALLENGE

Intermountain Healthcare’s Health Answers team facilitates post-discharge calling and inbound nurse advice for patients from Intermountain’s insurance division and uninsured populations. Despite being staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the Health Answers team experienced an enormous strain in resources, especially when delivering calls 24-48 hours post discharge. Readmission trends began steadily decreasing, but Intermountain executives wanted to look for ways to further reduce overall readmission rates and enhance workflows.

SOLUTION

In order to improve patient engagement post-discharge and bolster cost savings, Intermountain partnered with CipherHealth to transform their post-discharge followup program. CipherOutreach automatically calls 100% of patients within 24-48 hours of discharge and provides patients with the opportunity to express concerns about their recovery. The Health Answers team utilizes outreach calls as the first patient touchpoint, followed by personal calls to patients needing assistance, thus streamlining workflows and propelling the team’s performance.

RESULTS

Intermountain saw significant declines in 30-day readmission rates. Before using CipherOutreach, Intermountain had a 14.2% weighted CMS readmission rate. Since partnering with CipherHealth, thirty-day readmission rate dropped by 41% to 8.36%. By extrapolating across all reached patients, the health system achieved an estimated cost savings of over $2 Million for thirty-day readmissions.

Readmission Reduction at Intermountain Healthcare

CLIENT: Intermountain Healthcare, Salt Lake City, Utah, HOSPITALS: Central Region, Southwest Region, South Region, Park City-Heber, PRODUCT Post-Discharge Follow Up, PROGRAM: Readmissions Reduction, DATA PERIOD: Jan-March 2016