What makes a readmission reduction program useful to general inpatient populations? Here’s five ways a program can cut readmission rates.

There are many a readmissions program is useful to hospital initiatives. Multi-call capabilities, higher reach rates, specific clinical questions, predictive analytics, and lower volume are five ways readmission reduction program can reduce readmissions.

Mutli-Call Capabilities

Patients are not always easy to reach. In general, people might not always be near their phone or have time to answer it. Being able to send out multiple calls at different times 24-72 hours post-discharge dramatically increases the chance of reaching a patient, ensuring they are getting the proper care needed to get better faster.

Higher Reach Rates

Multi-call capabilities also lead to higher reach rates. How? By calling 100 percent of patients, an extremely time consuming task for nurses and call centers alike. Reaching more patients means reaching more at-risk patients and collecting more data to help predict future readmissions.

Specific Clinical Questions

Asking poignant questions regarding patient care and condition helps to better identify which patients are at a higher risk for readmission. Say a recently discharged CHF patient is asked whether or not they have gained two or more pounds within the last week. A negative response tells the hospital this person may be falling off the recovery track. More importantly ensuring that the patient owns or has access to a scale on the first call helps to see if the patient has the tools necessary to monitor their recovery. A standardized but customizable system keeps an eye on patients so they don’t end up back in a hospital bed.

Predictive Analytics

Readmissions reduction programs have another added benefit—fast data collection. Being able to identify at-risk patients based upon their data helps nurses to intervene before a patient may be readmitted. When a problem arises, like a patient not understanding their discharge instructions, a nurse can intervene and quickly resolve the issue. Instead of twenty minutes trying to identify a problem, a nurse can spend half that time actually solving the patient’s specific problem. Those ever-important resources of time and money are saved for both patient and practitioner.

Lower Volume

Fewer readmitted patients means more time for nurses to spend with their patients. It also saves on the costs associated with treating those readmitted patients. A readmission program such as Voice can help identify which patients nurses should spend more time on, and which are already well on their path to recovery.

To learn more about what Voice can do to improve outcomes please click HERE.

CipherHealth empowers providers across the care continuum to deliver enhanced patient experiences and communications through a modular, comprehensive patient engagement technology platform.