BATON ROUGE, La.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Amedisys, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMED), one of the nation’s leading health care at home companies, released a case study today that highlights how it helped Monongahela Valley Hospital (MVH) reduce its heart failure readmissions by 13% in one year through a collaborative care model.
With the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which includes a heightened focus on reducing avoidable readmissions, MVH, a community hospital in western Pennsylvania, wanted to reduce its heart failure readmission rate, which in 2010 was 27% - nearly 3% higher than the national average.
MVH formed a collaborative including its case management team, an MVH dietician and pharmacist, the Havencrest skilled nursing facility, the Residence at the Hilltop personal care home and Amedisys Home Health Care. Working together, the collaborative began to see a reduction in heart failure readmissions as early as Q1 2011 – and reduced heart failure readmission rate by 13% in one year.
“We at Amedisys believe strongly that collaboration with post-acute care partners including implementation of effective care transitions of patients from acute care settings back home can help patients better manage their chronic conditions such as heart failure,” stated Dr. Michael Fleming, Chief Medical Officer for Amedisys. “The MVH collaborative is proof that post-acute care is mission critical for reducing avoidable hospital readmission.”
Key learnings from the study include medication reconciliation between cross-settings is essential; the majority of heart failure patients require post-hospital intervention in the home; sharing a transfer summary across settings greatly improves communication; pre-determined standing protocols across the continuum make an impact; and it takes a community working together to reduce 30-day readmissions.
To view a case study on how Amedisys helped MVH reduce its heart failure readmission rate, please click here.
About Amedisys:
Amedisys, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMED) is a leading health care at home company delivering personalized home health and hospice care to more than 360,000 patients each year. Amedisys is focused on delivering the care that is best for our patients, whether that is home-based recovery and rehabilitation after an operation or injury, care focused on empowering them to manage a chronic disease, palliative care for those with a terminal illness, or hospice care at the end of life. The Company's state-of-the-art advanced chronic care management programs and leading-edge technology enables it to deliver quality care based upon the latest evidence-based best practices. Amedisys is a recognized innovator, being one of the first in the industry to equip its clinicians with point-of-care laptop technology and referring physicians with an internet portal that enables real-time coordination of patient care seamlessly. Amedisys also has the industry's first-ever nationwide Care Transitions program, designed to reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions through patient and caregiver health coaching and care coordination, which starts in the hospital and continues throughout completion of the patient's home health plan of care. For more information about the Company, please visit: http://www.amedisys.com.