Quality Improvement and Performance Monitoring Strategies |
1. Partnering with other hospitals in the local area to reduce readmissions* |
2. Tracking the percent of patients who were discharged with a follow-up appointment already scheduled for within 7 days |
3. Tracking the proportion of patients readmitted to another hospital |
4. Estimating risk of readmission in a formal way and using it to guide clinical care during hospitalization |
Medication Management Strategies |
5. Having electronic medical record or web-based forms in place to facilitate medication reconciliation |
6. Using teach-back techniques for patient and family education |
Discharge and Follow-up Strategies |
7. At discharge, providing patients with heart failure (or their caregivers) written action plans for managing changes in condition* |
8. Regularly calling patients after discharge to follow up on post-discharge needs or to provide additional education |
9. Discharging patients with an outpatient follow-up appointment already scheduled* |
*Use of these strategies has been associated with lower RSRR in prior cross-sectional studies19