News Feature | September 23, 2014

Post-Discharge Call Center Cuts Readmissions

Katie Wike

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Telehealth Cuts Readmissions

Patients who subscribed to a telemedicine call center after their release from the hospital had fewer readmissions than those who didn’t, according to a study in Telemedicine and e-Health.

According to a recent study, acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients who used a telemedicine call center after their release from the hospital were less likely to be readmitted than patients who did not.

“Patients hospitalized for an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) are at risk for early readmission,” explain researchers in the report, Is Telemedicine an Answer to Reducing 30-Day Readmission Rates Post–Acute Myocardial Infarction? “Readmission rates in the community reportedly reach 20 percent.”

Fierce Health IT reports the study looked at readmission rates for nearly 900 AMI patients who subscribed to the call center after discharge. Patient records were kept on file at the call center and patients were equipped with a cardio-beeper capable of transmitting an ECG by phone for comparison to their ECGs at the call center. Then, the attending nurse could decide if it was necessary to dispatch a mobile intensive care unit to the patient after consulting with the physician on call.

The results of the study include:

  • 3,318 calls were made to the telemedicine call center
  • 158 times the mobile unit was dispatched to patients
  • 64 patients were transported to the hospital
  • 52 patients were re-admitted
  • 5.8 percent was the study 30-day post-AMI readmission rate
  • 20 percent was the readmission rate in the community
  • 67 percent of those readmitted had problems eventually determined to be of non-cardiac origins

"Our records show that all the others who were telephonically advised on which steps to take at home or who were treated at home by the mobile unit's medical staff were safely spared unnecessary readmissions," the authors said, adding that without the call center, more patients likely would have gone to the emergency room and undergone a battery of tests.