The optimizing transition of care to reduce re-hospitalization rates is crucial for promoting a healthy society, reducing healthcare costs, and decreasing urinary catheter infections. The evolution of Care (TOC) moves patients’ care across treatment levels and ensures care coordination to prevent adverse clinical outcomes (Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, n. d.). A post-discharge appeal to the patients is among the remedies that may be incorporated into the TOC approach. The timing of post-discharge outreach is a critical factor in readmission rates. Hospital readmission has become a key focus for the U.S. health system owing to monetary penalties and their impact on the quality of treatment given (Monegro et al., 2020). Patients migrate to short and long-term critical care hospitals, hospices, primary and specialized care clinics, community hospitals, rehabilitation centers, care facilities, clinics, and residences throughout care transitions. Either of these shifts might cause issues, but the danger is exceptionally significant when patients are discharged from the hospital to get care elsewhere or at home.
Policymakers’ aim to “bend the cost structure” of health care has resulted in initiatives to improve care coordination through enhancing transitions between care settings. A new rule referred to as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has been enacted. Several federal programs are being promoted due to the Act, including measures to enhance care transitions and minimize readmissions following hospital release. This endeavor is driven mainly by hospital readmission intervention agendas (“U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,” 2021). Hospital readmission rates and expenditures rise as a result of inefficient care transfers following a stay. The reasons why health care system executives should be anxious about reducing avoidable readmissions are apparent. Healthcare professionals with a high rate of preventable cases of readmitting clients may lose a share of their government money under health reform. Aside from the high cost of avoidable readmission rates, preventable cases of admitting clients again are increasing. Consequently, they are being utilized as a measure of quality scrutinized by commercial third-party payers and consumers that can impact institutions’ bottom lines.
One of the most critical steps in lowering unfavorable readmission rates is to join a readmission prevention-focused cooperation. Collaborates could provide a means for healthcare systems and facilities to work together and exchange best practices and ideas for avoiding hospital readmissions, even if there are no financial incentives involved. Determining why individuals are readmitted, finding techniques to lower the rate, providing tools to improve treatment for patients with heart failure, and generating resources for individuals to control their disease were among the collaborative aims (Hirsch et al., 2017). Readmission prevention could also be achieved by post-discharge treatment. Transitional therapy, in terms of home caregiving, has been found to minimize hospital readmission rates. Transitional care may include a transitional treatment team or expert who helps patients maintain a continuum of care when switching providers after discharge.
Communication failures cause ineffective care transitioning from the hospital to post-acute therapy or the home. Providers are unable to share information with health professionals owing to technical and cultural obstacles. In addition, nosocomially acquired infections are illnesses that are neither present nor developing at the moment of admittance to a healthcare establishment. Catheter-associated urinary complications, acute focus bloodstream infections, hospital-acquired, hospital-acquired pneumonia, ventilator-associated pneumonia, and Clostridium difficile contagions are amongst the illnesses that might arise. Productive coughs, difficulty breathing, stomach distress, rebounding sensitivity, changed psychological status, pulses, periapical agony, excessive urination, dysuria, and clavicle soreness are all signs of infection (Monegro et al., 2020). This exercise discusses the diagnosis and treatment of hospital-acquired illnesses as well as the function of the interdisciplinary crew in enhancing patient care.
References
Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs. (n. d.) Step by step guide to implement quality improvement. Web.
Hirsch, M. A., Nguyen, V. Q., Wieczorek, N. S., Rhoads, C. F., & Weaver, P. R. (2017). Teaching health care policy: Using panel debate to teach residents about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.MedEdPORTAL, 13. Web.
Monegro, A. F., Muppidi, V., & Regunath, H. (2020). Hospital acquired infections.Statpearls. Web.
U.S. department of health and human services health resources and services administration. (2021). Developing and Implementing a QI Plan. Web.