Video
Data-Driven Insights in Reducing All-Cause Readmissions
In this fireside chat, our own VP of Clinical Services, Joy Avery, is joined by North Mississippi Medical Center’s Chief Nursing Officer, Donna Pritchard. Joy and Donna explored the Baldrige National Quality Award-winning hospital’s patient-centric and data-driven approach to improving readmissions rates, and key takeaways for healthcare leaders seeking to implement impactful CipherOutreach programs.
Reducing Readmissions with Proactive Post Discharge Communication
- North Mississippi Medical Center partnered with CipherHealth with the goal of decreasing the overall readmission rate and to build relationships with patients.
- By implementing a call and text patient outreach program targeted to a cohort of specific patients, North Mississippi Medical Center was able to reduce their overall readmission rate
- Discharged patients would receive communication from CipherHealth within 2 days, if a patient needs assistance, the line of communication is bounced back to a North Mississippi Medical Center nurse.
- Patients receive check up calls on the 2nd day, 8th day, 16th day, and 28th day after discharge.
- Proactive communication with patients post-discharge has reduced overall readmission rates.
- After partnering with CipherHealth, North Mississippi Medical Center discovered that less than 50% of discharged patients were set up with a follow up visit.
- North Mississippi Medical Center was able to achieve a median response time of 24 minutes to patients requiring a call back, much faster than their goal of less than 2 hours.
- Calling patients back quickly has helped North Mississippi Medical Center improve and build relationships with patients.
- North Mississippi Medical Center improved processes with documentation; previously too many patient issues were placed in the “Other” bucket, which was not conducive to identifying patient needs.
- CipherHealth reduced all-cause readmissions.
- Patients contacted through CipherHealth’s outreach program have 25% lower readmissions.
- This decrease in readmission rate prevented North Mississippi Medical Center from receiving a fine from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
- These savings more than paid for the CipherHealth outreach program.
