MCN Healthcare: Policy Management and Compliance Tools

As StayAlert reviewed in Monday's notice, Section 3025 of the Affordable Care Act establishing the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program becomes effective for discharges beginning October 1, 2012. The provision reduces CMS payments to certain hospitals having excess readmissions for three conditions: acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia.

One initiative that may be of interest to hospitals seeking to reduce readmissions is the Re-Engineered Hospital Discharge (Project RED).  This initiative re-engineers the workflow process and improves patient safety by using a nurse discharge advocate who follows 11 discrete mutually reinforcing action steps shown to improve the discharge process and decrease hospital readmissions.  Project RED was developed for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) by Brian Jack, M.D., Associate Professor of Family Medicine at Boston University, and Timothy Bickmore, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the College of Computer and Information Science at Northeastern University.  According to a 2009 study published the Annals of Internal Medicine, patients who have a clear understanding of their after-hospital care instructions, including how to take their medicines and when to make follow-up appointments, are 30 percent less likely to be readmitted or visit the emergency department than patients who lack this information.

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