Ability of nurse clinicians to predict unplanned returns to hospital within thirty days of discharge

Preventability of unplanned readmissions within 30 days of discharge. A cross-sectional, single-center study

Objectives

To identify the preventability, determinants and causes of unplanned hospital readmissions within 30 days of discharge using a multidisciplinary approach and including patients’ perspectives.

Design

A prospective cross-sectional single-center study.

Setting

Urban teaching hospital in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Participants

430 patients were included. Inclusion criteria were: age ≥ 18 years, discharged from one of seven participating clinical departments and an unplanned readmission within 30 days.

Methods

Residents from the participating departments individually assessed whether the readmission was caused by healthcare, the preventability and possible causes of readmissions using a tool. Thereafter, the preventability of the cases was discussed in a multidisciplinary meeting with residents of all participating departments and clinical pharmacists. The primary outcome was the proportion of readmissions that were potentially preventable. Secondary outcomes were the determinants for a readmission, causes for preventable readmissions, the change in the final decision on preventability after the multidisciplinary meeting and the value of patient interviews in assessing preventability. Differences in characteristics of potentially preventable readmissions (PPRs) and non-PPRs were analyzed using multivariable logistic regression.

Results

Of 430 readmissions, 56 (13%) were assessed as PPRs. Age was significantly associated with a PPR (adjusted OR: 2.42; 95%, CI 1.23–4.74; p = 0.01). The main causes for PPRs were diagnostic (30%), medication (27%) and management problems (27%). During the multidisciplinary meeting, the final decision on preventability changed in 11% of the cases. When a patient interview was available, it was used as a source of information to assess preventability in 26% of readmissions. In 7% of cases, the patient interview was mentioned as the most important source.

Conclusion and implications

13% of readmissions were potentially preventable with diagnostic, medication or management problems being main causes. A multidisciplinary review approach and including the patient’s perspective could contribute to a better understanding of the complexity of readmissions and possible improvements.

Towards a patient journey perspective on causes of unplanned readmissions using a classification framework: results of a systematic review with narrative synthesis

Background

Several literature reviews have been published focusing on the prevalence and/or preventability of hospital readmissions. To our knowledge, none focused on the different causes which have been used to evaluate the preventability of readmissions. Insight into the range of causes is crucial to understand the complex nature of readmissions.

With this review we aim to: 1) evaluate the range of causes of unplanned readmissions in a patient journey, and 2) present a cause classification framework that can support future readmission studies.

Methods

A literature search was conducted in PUBMED and EMBASE using “readmission” and “avoidability” or “preventability” as key terms. Studies that specified causes of unplanned readmissions were included. The causes were classified into eight preliminary root causes: Technical, Organization (integrated care), Organization (hospital department level), Human (care provider), Human (informal caregiver), Patient (self-management), Patient (disease), and Other. The root causes were based on expert opinions and the root cause analysis tool of PRISMA (Prevention and Recovery Information System for Monitoring and Analysis). The range of different causes were analyzed using Microsoft Excel.

Results

Forty-five studies that reported 381 causes of readmissions were included. All studies reported causes related to organization of care at the hospital department level. These causes were often reported as preventable. Twenty-two studies included causes related to patient’s self-management and 19 studies reported causes related to patient’s disease. Studies differed in which causes were seen as preventable or unpreventable. None reported causes related to technical failures and causes due to integrated care issues were reported in 18 studies.

Conclusions

This review showed that causes for readmissions were mainly evaluated from a hospital perspective. However, causes beyond the scope of the hospital can also play a major role in unplanned readmissions. Opinions regarding preventability seem to depend on contextual factors of the readmission. This study presents a cause classification framework that could help future readmission studies to gain insight into a broad range of causes for readmissions in a patient journey.

In conclusion, we aimed to: 1) evaluate the range of causes for unplanned readmissions, and 2) present a cause classification framework for causes related to readmissions.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12874-019-0822-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

How do studies assess the preventability of readmissions? A systematic review with narrative synthesis

Background

A large number of articles examined the preventability rate of readmissions, but comparison and interpretability of these preventability rates is complicated due to the large heterogeneity of methods that were used.

To compare (the implications of) the different methods used to assess the preventability of readmissions by means of medical record review.

Methods

A literature search was conducted in PUBMED and EMBASE using “readmission” and “avoidability” or “preventability” as key terms. A consensus-based narrative data synthesis was performed to compare and discuss the different methods.

Results

Abstracts of 2504 unique citations were screened resulting in 48 full text articles which were included in the final analysis. Synthesis led to the identification of a set of important variables on which the studies differed considerably (type of readmissions, sources of information, definition of preventability, cause classification and reviewer process). In 69% of the studies the cause classification and preventability assessment were integrated; meaning specific causes were predefined as preventable or not preventable. The reviewers were most often medical specialist (67%), and 27% of the studies added interview as a source of information.

Conclusion

A consensus-based standardised approach to assess preventability of readmission is warranted to reduce the unwanted bias in preventability rates. Patient-related and integrated care related factors are potentially underreported in readmission studies.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12874-019-0766-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Reasons for returning to the emergency department following discharge from an internal medicine unit: perspectives of patients and the liaison nurse clinician

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

To understand the patients' reasons for returning to the emergency department soon after their discharge from an internal medicine unit and to compare these reasons with the liaison nurse clinician's risk assessment tools used for discharge planning.

BACKGROUND

Returns to the emergency departments soon after discharge from the hospital are a recurrent problem. Factors precipitating readmission to hospital have been analysed through the lens of health care providers, but few studies have explored the patients' perspectives on their reasons for returning to the emergency departments.

DESIGN

A qualitative, descriptive study.

METHODS

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of eight patients recruited from a major teaching hospital in Montreal, Canada. Three different data sources were triangulated: patients' perspectives obtained through interviews and data from the tools used by the liaison nurse clinician, the Bounceback Probability Legend and the LACE Index Scoring Tool.

RESULTS

Most patients attributed their return to the emergency department on being discharged too soon, feeling weak at discharge, having limited help at home with managing chronic illnesses and insufficient discharge instructions. participants' reasons for returning differed from those predicted by the liaison nurse clinician's evaluation using the risk assessment tools of each participant's risk of return.

CONCLUSIONS

This study highlights patients' frailty upon discharge from the hospital and their informational need on their health condition and their support need to rely on during convalescence at home. Patient's readiness and concerns were not integrated as part of the liaison nurse clinician's evaluation tools for discharge planning. This led to discrepancies between the perspectives of the patients and the liaison nurse clinician about discharge planning.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

Health care professionals should evaluate patients' understanding of their illness, their readiness for self-management and work collaboratively with patients to assess concerns before discharge, so that appropriate support can be mobilised to prevent readmission.