Let me out of here! That is the response of most patients on the day they are to go home.

The discharge planning process is hectic. The nurse is quickly reading the plan. The patient just wants out of there. Dead flowers need to be tossed. It is organized chaos. Patients and family members often do not leave with a clear understanding of what they need to do at home.

The result often can be an avoidable readmission—especially for Medicare patients.

This story explains the problem and offers actionable advice about how to make the discharge process work better.

When one in five Medicare patients is readmitted within 30 days, the system is not working.

Do read this.

The New York Times

…”Discharge from the hospital is a critical point in a patient’s recovery, particularly for older people with chronic conditions. The process is supposed to be carefully planned, but instead it often is rushed and poorly coordinated, resulting in complications that send patients back to the emergency room. (Emphasis added)

“According to a study published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine, one in five Medicare patients returns to the hospital within 30 days of being discharged. The problem is an expensive one: in 2004, these readmissions cost Medicare $17.4 billion dollars, the researchers also found. (Emphasis added)

Hospital stays certainly are shorter now: the average stay was 4.6 days in 2007, down from about 5.7 days in 1993. But the readmissions problem is not simply the result of compressed care, experts say. (Emphasis added)

“Hospitals tend to focus their efforts on the admissions process, because that’s when the patient is most sick,” said Dr. Mark V. Williams, one of the authors of the study. “The discharge process can be just as important but rarely gets the same level of attention.” (Emphasis added)

Source: New York Times, June 18, 2010