Hartford Grantee Dr. Eric Coleman Featured in U.S News and World Report on Hospital Readmissions
Hartford grantee Dr. Eric Coleman, who is director of the Care Transitions Program, was recently featured in a U.S. News and World Report article that focused on the issue of hospital readmission. Delving beyond the misconstrued notion that non-compliant patients are the root cause of readmission rates, a closer examination of the numbers reveal that hospitals are not sufficiently preparing their patients for the transition from the hospital environment to their home environment.
Hartford grantee Dr. Eric Coleman was recently featured in a U.S. News and World Report article that focused on the issue of hospital readmission. Delving beyond the misconstrued notion that non-compliant patients are the root cause of readmission rates, a closer examination of the numbers reveal that hospitals are not sufficiently preparing their patients for the transition from the hospital environment to their home environment.
In addition to heart failure being the number 1 reason for hospital readmission, the underlying factor seem to also indicate a disconnect between patient and doctors when patients are discharged from the hospital environment.
In the past, "The clinician would go in the room and give [patients] the same one-size-fits-none discharge instructions and then sure enough, it didn’t work that time either,” said Dr. Coleman, who in addition to being a Hartford grantee is also a geriatrician and director of the Medicare-funded Care Transitions Program.
Dr. Coleman and other doctors working in the field are advocating for a refocused effort on patients' goals. Hospitals seldom ask patient's about their specific recovery goals to increase their quality of life and this can often be the reason behind why a patient may need to be readmitted to a hospital.
"Really listening to and learning about patients’ lives takes extra time. But that takes a lot less time – and costs a lot less – than coping with heart failure relapse," Dr. Coleman suggested in the article.
Read the full article on the U.S. News and World Report website.