Dive Brief:
- Emerging incentives are encouraging hospitals to make even greater efforts to reduce complications, infections and readmissions.
- One health system, Dignity Health, has partnered with HHS to help find and spread ideas to boost patient care and cut back on hospital-acquired infections.
- Dignity Health, one of the five largest hospital systems in the nation, saved about $30 million over two years by leveraging evidence-based practices and a nurse training program focused on preventing readmissions and hospital-acquired infections.
Dive Insight:
The program in which Dignity Health is participating is HHS' Partnership for Patients Hospital Engagement Networks, a $218-million initiative that embraces 3,700 hospitals. The effort seems to be achieving some successes, as Dignity's example illustrates. Experts say that to succeed over time, the HHS program will need to introduce strategies that can be used across teams, departments and hospitals, and also, take into account various patient-specific factors that affect readmissions risk.
Dignity's takeaways from the program included a conclusion that it's critical to include not only patients, but also family members, in sharing discharge instructions, including why meds have been prescribed, how to use them appropriately and whether there are potential drug side effects.