Tool Aims To Eliminate 30-Day Readmissions for Heart Failure Patients

Researchers at the Intermountain Heart Institute have developed a tool that aims to eliminate 30-day hospital  readmissions for heart failure patients in part by adding specific information  to patients’ electronic health records, Healthcare IT News reports.

Tool Development

To develop the tool — known as the IMRS-HF — researchers examined the EHRs  of more than 6,000 heart failure patients discharged from Intermountain  Healthcare hospitals between 1999 and 2011.

Researchers then adapted the Intermountain Risk Score, a system used to  predict the mortality rates of trauma patients.

Finally, researchers validated the tool by applying it to 459 patients who  were hospitalized between April 2011 and October 2012.

How the Tool Works

IMRS-HF combines statistical modeling data into a risk score that tells  physicians how likely a patient is to be readmitted to a hospital within 30  days.

The score — which is calculated when a patient is admitted to the  hospital — is included in the patient’s EHR, where it is available as  an alert to help inform physicians’ treatment decisions (Monegain, Healthcare  IT News, 3/11).

Hospitals that used the tool saw a 2.5% decrease in 30-day readmission rates  compared with hospitals that did not use the tool, according to a recent Intermountain Healthcare study.

Benefits and Goals of the Tool

Jose Benuzillo — a senior outcomes analyst at Intermountain Healthcare —  said, “Use of this tool reduces variation in practice between the most  skilled and experienced specialists in cardiovascular care and more general  practitioners who see cardiovascular patients more infrequently” (Hall, FierceHealthIT, 3/11).

In a statement, Benjamin Horne — lead researcher and  director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at Intermountain Heart  Institute — said, “Our next step is to look at ways to integrate this tool into  the planning for all of our heart failure patients so we can reduce the number  of 30-day readmissions and provide better quality care at a lower cost”  (Healthcare IT News, 3/11).

Source: iHealthBeat

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