Hospitals are being held to higher standards than ever before. Thanks to healthcare reform, today’s hospitals are under the gun to reduce their patient readmission rates or face some hefty Medicare fines. In an article posted by Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), entitled “Two Ways Hospitals Can Reduce Avoidable Readmissions,” we can see that hospitals across the country are successfully reducing their 30-day readmission rates, in part, due to some meaningful and effective collaborations with home care providers, like Heaven at Home of Denton, TX, to provide a continuum of care that high-risk patients require following a hospital discharge.
The hospitals quoted in this article offer the following tips to reduce avoidable readmissions:
- Begin planning for a patient’s discharge on the day of admission. When a loved one is hospitalized, contact a home care agency to arrange for services for when he or she is discharged. The sooner someone is available to help with care at home, the better the outcome will be.
- Access the patient’s risk factors, needs, available resources, disease knowledge, and family support.
- Target patients who are likely to have problems following discharge for enhanced care coordination and/or case management. (Have social workers visit all patients over 80 years old to address their needs.)
- Utilize technology to assist in assessing, tracking, or referring patients.
At Heaven at Home, we pride ourselves not only on providing the highest quality care to our patients, but also on offering helpful transitions for patients from care facilities to the home environment. Our Dallas home care services help patients rest and recuperate while ensuring that medications are taken on time and activities of daily living are handled in a safe manner to promote healing. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help patients during those tricky transitions.