Dive Brief:
- Heart surgery patients' outcomes are significantly tied to the level of teamwork performed by their physicians across their entire episode of care, from preparation to recuperation, according to a new study from the University of Michigan Health System.
- The study was based on Medicare data for 251,000 Americans who underwent heart bypass surgery and received care from 466,000 physicians
- Researchers concluded that a 25% increase in teamwork was associated with 17 fewer readmissions per 1,000 patients treated.
Dive Insight:
The findings may hold implications not only for heart surgeries but for other procedures, types of providers, and patients covered by other types of health insurance, the researchers suggested. Also, health outcomes are now more significant to providers' bottom lines due to the recent release of the MACRA final rule.
"A lot of the focus in improving care is focused on the acute hospitalization for an episode of care," said lead author John Hollingsworth. "We believe that this focus is too myopic because it ignores the care delivered prior to the hospital stay and after discharge. Efforts to improve teamwork, and outcomes, need to consider the entire care continuum."
The more frequently physicians had worked together before on other patients, the better their current patients' chances were for avoiding death or readmission within the following two months of their surgery, the study found.
Large academic medical centers appeared to be at a disadvantage, typically receiving lower teamwork scores because they take patients referred from physicians outside their normal sphere. That could be a factor in why such hospitals often fail to score well on Medicare's measures of patient outcomes, the researchers noted.