Could Hospital Readmission Rates be drastically reduced using Data Analytics and Mobility?

By one industry estimate, Medicare is preparing to penalize hospitals with frequent potentially avoidable readmissions, which is estimated cost the government about $12 billion a year. Medicare’s aim is to engage with hospitals to make sure patients get the care they need after discharge. But this new policy is likely to disproportionately affect hospitals that treat low-income patients and a very vulnerable segment of the population. RoundWorld Solutions (RWS) believes that the readmission problem can be to a large extent mitigated by applying business intelligence and mobility to target, monitor and reduce readmission rates. All hospitals, but especially those with high readmission rates operate on tight margins and the new penalties by Medicare will make it even harder for them to properly care for these patients.

The biggest root cause for readmission rate has been lack of follow-through with medication, dietary plans and lack of monitoring for clinical symptoms that need medical intervention. Patients have cited several reasons like lack of money to buy medication, inability to read and follow instructions, affordability and access to nutritional foods, fear of losing job, lack of follow through and access to health care professionals, and many more economic, social, and behavioral limitations.

The good thing about healthcare domain is the abundance of data starting from patient health records, doctor prescriptions, patient diagnostic data, Medicare and Medicaid assistance records, etc. All this data can be culled to build a model about patients or healthcare consumers with the most readmission rates. This data model gathered with intelligent application of data analytics can be used to analyze patterns, common issues, and help build a mitigation model to reduce the hospital readmission rate.

The mitigation plan may include methods and procedures to leverage healthcare mobility technology and solutions to fill the gaps to reduce the readmission rates. It may as simple as a mobile enabled monitoring device to sample clinical data or follow through medication and treatment plan to assist the patients. Many a times working with a social worker or family member to take simple actions like remind the patient to take medication, alternatives for unaffordable medication, or report any change in clinical conditions could drastically reduce the readmission rates.

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If you would like to discuss the Roundworld Solutions Big Data 360 View Tool, or this article please contact the author Arun Kumar – Vice President, Solutions and Delivery at arunk@roundworldsolutions.com or contact us today.