Unplanned readmissions after hospital discharge among patients identified as being at high risk for readmission using a validated predictive algorithm

BACKGROUND: Unplanned hospital readmissions are common, expensive and often preventable. Strategies designed to reduce readmissions should target patients at high risk. The purpose of this study was to describe medical patients identified using a recently published and validated algorithm (the LACE index) as being at high risk for readmission and to examine their actual hospital readmission rates. METHODS: We used population-based administrative data to identify adult medical patients discharged alive from 6 hospitals in Toronto, Canada, during 2007. A LACE index score of 10 or higher was used to identify patients at high risk for readmission. We described patient and hospitalization characteristics among both the high-risk and low-risk groups as well as the 30-day readmission rates. RESULTS: Of 26 045 patients, 12.6% were readmitted to hospital within 30 days and 20.9% were readmitted within 90 days of discharge. High-risk patients (LACE ≥ 10) accounted for 34.0% of the sample but 51.7% of the patients who were readmitted within 30 days. High-risk patients were readmitted with twice the frequency as other patients, had longer lengths of stay and were more likely to die during the readmission. INTERPRETATION: Using a LACE index score of 10, we identified patients with a high rate of readmission who may benefit from improved post-discharge care. Our findings suggest that the LACE index is a potentially useful tool for decision-makers interested in identifying appropriate patients for post-discharge interventions

Oral vitamin B(12 )therapy in the primary care setting: a qualitative and quantitative study of patient perspectives

BACKGROUND: Although oral replacement with high doses of vitamin B(12 )is both effective and safe for the treatment of B(12 )deficiency, little is known about patients' views concerning the acceptability and effectiveness of oral B(12). We investigated patient perspectives on switching from injection to oral B(12 )therapy. METHODS: This study involved a quantitative arm using questionnaires and a qualitative arm using semi-structured interviews, both to assess patient views on injection and oral therapy. Patients were also offered a six-month trial of oral B(12 )therapy. One hundred and thirty-three patients who receive regular B(12 )injections were included from three family practice units (two hospital-based academic clinics and one community health centre clinic) in Toronto. RESULTS: Seventy-three percent (63/86) of respondents were willing to try oral B(12). In a multivariate analysis, patient factors associated with a "willingness to switch" to oral B(12 )included being able to get to the clinic in less than 30 minutes (OR 9.3, 95% CI 2.2–40.0), and believing that frequent visits to the health care provider (OR 5.4, 95% CI 1.1–26.6) or the increased costs to the health care system (OR 16.7, 95% CI 1.5–184.2) were disadvantages of injection B(12). Fifty-five patients attempted oral therapy and 52 patients returned the final questionnaire. Of those who tried oral therapy, 76% (39/51) were satisfied and 71% (39/55) wished to permanently switch. Factors associated with permanently switching to oral therapy included believing that the frequent visits to the health care provider (OR 35.4, 95% CI 2.9–432.7) and travel/parking costs (OR 8.7, 95% CI 1.2–65.3) were disadvantages of injection B(12). Interview participants consistently cited convenience as an advantage of oral therapy. CONCLUSION: Switching patients from injection to oral B(12 )is both feasible and acceptable to patients. Oral B(12 )supplementation is well received largely due to increased convenience. Clinicians should offer oral B(12 )therapy to their patients who are currently receiving injections, and newly diagnosed B(12)-deficient patients who can tolerate and are compliant with oral medications should be offered oral supplementation

Activity-Based Funding of Hospitals and Its Impact on Mortality, Readmission, Discharge Destination, Severity of Illness, and Volume of Care: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Activity-based funding (ABF) of hospitals is a policy intervention intended to re-shape incentives across health systems through the use of diagnosis-related groups. Many countries are adopting or actively promoting ABF. We assessed the effect of ABF on key measures potentially affecting patients and health care systems: mortality (acute and post-acute care); readmission rates; discharge rate to post-acute care following hospitalization; severity of illness; volume of care.     Methods: We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis of the worldwide evidence produced since 1980. We included all studies reporting original quantitative data comparing the impact of ABF versus alternative funding systems in acute care settings, regardless of language. We searched 9 electronic databases (OVID MEDLINE, EMBASE, OVID Healthstar, CINAHL, Cochrane CENTRAL, Health Technology Assessment, NHS Economic Evaluation Database, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Business Source), hand-searched reference lists, and consulted with experts. Paired reviewers independently screened for eligibility, abstracted data, and assessed study credibility according to a pre-defined scoring system, resolving conflicts by discussion or adjudication.     Results: Of 16,565 unique citations, 50 US studies and 15 studies from 9 other countries proved eligible (i.e. Australia, Austria, England, Germany, Israel, Italy, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland). We found consistent and robust differences between ABF and no-ABF in discharge to post-acute care, showing a 24% increase with ABF (pooled relative risk = 1.24, 95% CI 1.18–1.31). Results also suggested a possible increase in readmission with ABF, and an apparent increase in severity of illness, perhaps reflecting differences in diagnostic coding. Although we found no consistent, systematic differences in mortality rates and volume of care, results varied widely across studies, some suggesting appreciable benefits from ABF, and others suggesting deleterious consequences.     Conclusions: Transitioning to ABF is associated with important policy- and clinically-relevant changes. Evidence suggests substantial increases in admissions to post-acute care following hospitalization, with implications for system capacity and equitable access to care. High variability in results of other outcomes leaves the impact in particular settings uncertain, and may not allow a jurisdiction to predict if ABF would be harmless. Decision-makers considering ABF should plan for likely increases in post-acute care admissions, and be aware of the large uncertainty around impacts on other critical outcomes

Prescription of Opioids for Opioid-Naive Medical Inpatients

ABSTRACT Background: Harms associated with prescription opioids are a major and increasing public health concern. Prescribing of opioids for inpatients may contribute to the problem, especially if primary care practitioners continue opioid therapy that is initiated in hospital. Objectives: To describe the extent and nature of opioid prescribing for opioid-naive patients (i.e., no use of opioids within 2 weeks before admission) on an internal medicine unit. Methods: This single-centre study involved chart review for opioid-naive patients admitted to the internal medicine unit of a large academic health sciences centre in Toronto, Ontario. Over 12 weeks, patients were prospectively identified for the study, and charts were later reviewed to characterize opioid use during the hospital stay and upon discharge. The primary outcomes were the proportions of opioid-naive patients for whom opioids were prescribed in hospital and upon discharge. Data on serious adverse events related to opioid use (e.g., need for naloxone or occurrence of falls) were also collected through chart review. Results: From July 4 to September 22, 2011, a total of 721 patients were admitted to the study unit, of whom 381 (53%) were classified as opioid-naive. Opioids were prescribed for 82 (22%) of these opioid naive patients while they were in hospital. Among the opioid-naive patients, there were a total of 247 opioid prescriptions, with hydromorphone (110 prescriptions) and morphine (92 prescriptions) being the drugs most commonly prescribed. For 23 (28%) of the patients with a prescription for opioids in hospital (6% of all opioid-naive patients), an opioid was also prescribed upon discharge. The indication for opioids was docu- mented in 16 (70%) of the 23 discharge prescriptions. No adverse events or deaths related to opioid use were identified during the hospital stays. Conclusions: Among opioid-naive patients admitted to the internal medicine unit, opioids were prescribed for about 1 in 5 patients, and less than one-third of these patients were continued on opioids at the time of discharge. These results, if replicated elsewhere, suggest that efforts to improve opioid prescribing and reduce attendant harm should be focused primarily on the outpatient setting.RÉSUMÉ Contexte : Les préjudices liés aux opioïdes d’ordonnance représentent un enjeu important et croissant en santé publique. Le fait de prescrire des opioïdes aux patients hospitalisés pourrait aggraver le problème, particulièrement si les praticiens de premier recours poursuivent le traitement opioïde amorcé à l’hôpital. Objectifs : Décrire dans quelle mesure l’on prescrit quels opioïdes dans un service de médecine interne à des patients n’ayant pas reçu ces analgésiques au cours des deux semaines précédant leur hospitalisation. Méthodes : Cette étude menée dans un seul centre comportait une analyse des dossiers médicaux de patients ayant été admis au service de médecine interne d’un important centre de santé universitaire à Toronto en Ontario et n’ayant pas reçu d’opioïdes au cours des deux semaines précédant l’hospitalisation. Sur une période de douze semaines, ces patients ont été recrutés de façon prospective pour l'étude et leurs dossiers ont été examinés ultérieurement afin de décrire l’utilisation d’opioïdes au cours de leur séjour à l’hôpital et au moment du congé. Les principaux paramètres d’évaluation étaient les proportions de patients n’ayant pas reçu d’opioïdes au cours des deux semaines précédant leur hospitalisation qui s’en sont vu prescrire au cours du séjour et au moment du congé. Des données sur les événements indésirables graves liés à la prise d’opioïdes (p. ex., le recours à la naloxone ou les cas de chutes) ont aussi été recueillies à l’aide de l’analyse des dossiers médicaux. Résultats : Entre le 4 juillet et le 22 septembre 2011, un total de 721 patients ont été admis dans le service à l’étude et, parmi eux, 381 (53 %) n’avaient pas reçu d’opioïdes au cours des deux semaines précédant leur hospitalisation. Des opioïdes ont été prescrits à 82 de ces derniers (22 %) alors qu’ils séjournaient à l’hôpital. Parmi les patients admissibles à l’étude, on a relevé 247 ordonnances d’opioïdes, dont 110 ordonnances d’hydro- morphone et 92 ordonnances de morphine, les opioïdes les plus couramment prescrits. Vingt-trois (28 %) des patients à qui l’on a prescrit des opioïdes à l’hôpital (6 % de l’ensemble des patients n’ayant pas reçu d’opioïdes au cours des deux semaines précédant leur hospitalisation) ont aussi obtenu une ordonnance pour des opioïdes au moment du congé. Les indications pour les opioïdes ont été consignées dans 16 (70 %) des 23 cas d’ordonnances données au moment du congé. Aucun événement indésirable ou décès lié à l’utilisation d’opioïdes n’a été noté pendant les séjours à l’hôpital. Conclusions : Parmi les patients n’ayant pas reçu d’opioïdes au cours des deux semaines précédant leur hospitalisation dans le service de médecine interne, un patient sur cinq s’est vu prescrire des opioïdes et moins d’un tiers de ces patients ont vu se poursuivre ce traitement au moment du congé. Les résultats, si cette étude est reproduite ailleurs, suggèrent que les efforts visant à améliorer les pratiques de prescription d’opioïdes et à réduire les risques inhérents pour le patient doivent être axés principalement sur les soins externes

Aligning Incentives for Academic Physicians to Improve Health Care Quality

A CADEMIC HEALTH SCIENCE CENTERS PLAY A LEADing role in the development of new knowledge, 1 yet the quality of care in academic hospitals is on average only modestly better than that of care provided by community hospitals. However, averages are also misleading. In one study evaluating care of patients with acute coronary syndrome, 15 of the 20 top-performing institutions were community hospitals. 3 Indeed, many organizations that have been at the forefront of the quality improvement movement, such as Intermountain Healthcare and Geisinger Health System, are not among the highest-ranked academic centers in terms of research grants and research productivity. One reason academic health science centers do not consistently provide superior care may be the incentive structures that exist within them for academic physicians. These physicians determine not only what research is undertaken but also how clinical care is delivered and how much attention is given to quality improvement. The choices that academic physicians make, and the incentives that affect those choices, have a profound influence not only on knowledge generation but also on the quality of health care received by millions of patients. In this Commentary, we suggest that academic physicians currently face financial and nonfinancial incentives that discourage the expenditure of time and energy on projects likely to improve patient care in their local environments. These incentives will need to change if academic health science centers are to become leaders in quality improvement

Primary medication non-adherence after discharge from a general internal medicine service.

Medication non-adherence frequently leads to suboptimal patient outcomes. Primary non-adherence, which occurs when a patient does not fill an initial prescription, is particularly important at the time of hospital discharge because new medications are often being prescribed to treat an illness rather than for prevention.We studied older adults consecutively discharged from a general internal medicine service at a large urban teaching hospital to determine the prevalence of primary non-adherence and identify characteristics associated with primary non-adherence. We reviewed electronic prescriptions, electronic discharge summaries and pharmacy dispensing data from April to August 2010 for drugs listed on the public formulary. Primary non-adherence was defined as failure to fill one or more new prescriptions after hospital discharge. In addition to descriptive analyses, we developed a logistical regression model to identify patient characteristics associated with primary non-adherence.There were 493 patients eligible for inclusion in our study, 232 of whom were prescribed new medications. In total, 66 (28%) exhibited primary non-adherence at 7 days after discharge and 55 (24%) at 30 days after discharge. Examples of medications to which patients were non-adherent included antibiotics, drugs for the management of coronary artery disease (e.g. beta-blockers, statins), heart failure (e.g. beta-blockers, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, furosemide), stroke (e.g. statins, clopidogrel), diabetes (e.g. insulin), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (e.g. long-acting bronchodilators, prednisone). Discharge to a nursing home was associated with an increased risk of primary non-adherence (OR 2.25, 95% CI 1.01-4.95).Primary non-adherence after medications are newly prescribed during a hospitalization is common, and was more likely to occur in patients discharged to a nursing home