Can We Do a Better Job of Keeping Patients Out of the Hospital?

Keeping patients out of the hospital and preventing readmissions was the focus of several studies in 2014. This topic has taken on great importance, due to financial pressures to shorten hospital length of stay and new financial penalties for early readmissions.

In a randomized trial, researchers examined whether a “virtual ward” could prevent readmissions. The intervention involved a team of outpatient healthcare professionals who sought to provide daily integrated care (similar to hospital rounds and including home visits) for high-risk internal medicine patients, starting the day after these patients were discharged from Canadian hospitals and continuing for 1 month. Researchers noted no difference in 1-year mortality or hospital readmiss…