Two senior leaders at Ascension talked about how data is helping the national health ministry reduce preventable hospital readmissions in an online Health IT Analytics story.
Ann Hendrich, RN, PhD, FAAN, Senior Vice President and Chief Quality/Safety and Nursing Officer of Ascension Health, and Mary Paul, Vice President of Ascension Information Services, are featured in the story.
Through analyzing the health system’s big data, and focusing on what drives patient behaviors in its communities, Ascension has already drastically reduced its hospital readmission rates, even while penalties from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) start to peak.
“CMS has targeted known diagnoses that generate significant preventable hospital readmissions, including acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, and pneumonia,” Hendrich explained. “So all of our healthcare sites and hospitals have really been looking carefully at transitions of care and how we can best design a person-centered care model that anticipates the failures that really cause hospital readmissions.”
Those include medication management, access to primary care physicians, and socioeconomic conditions that could contribute to an individual’s health challenges.
According to Hendrich and Paul, the keys to success lie in forming strong partnerships with other stakeholders along the care continuum while being flexible and innovative enough to devise patient care strategies that can work on such a large scale.
“Our care models and pilots have been testing to see what strategies work best to anticipate … failure mechanisms, and design them out and do the right thing the first time for the patient,” Hendrich said. “There is intense effort right now around designing patient-centered care models, and we’re viewing preventable hospitalization as failure of the healthcare system, which is supposed to keep the patient out of the hospital.”
Getting accurate, timely data is the key to learning why patients are readmitted to the hospital. Analysts can then use that information to determine ways to reduce avoidable readmissions.
Focusing more energy on the patient as an individual with complex, unique needs “is what motivates us to identify solutions that are comprehensive and really directed at making a difference in our communities at large and for the patient specifically as a person,” Paul said. “Whether it’s a technology or an intervention, we’re really motivated by what is right for the patient.”
Hendrich agrees. “Starting with data can be very helpful when looking at trends across the care continuum or across a specific disease or condition, but more important is that we connect that data with the patient,” she said. “Identifying the trends and the source of readmissions then leads you to the solution that will improve your care model for the future.”
Learn more about Ascension’s approach to compassionate, personalized care.
