Curaspan Customers Cut Preventable Readmission Rates and Save Almost $180 Million in One Year

NEWTON, Mass., March 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Acute-care facilities that regularly review and respond to data about trends in readmissions can substantially lower readmission rates and save, on average, $1.3 million per year, according to Curaspan Health Group, the industry leader in building secure electronic patient-transition networks for hospitals, post-acute providers and suppliers.

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A review of aggregated 2009 data for 137 hospitals, most with more than 150 beds, reveals that hospitals regularly reviewing monthly reports with detailed readmissions-related data are reducing their preventable readmission rates by an average of 0.5 percent. That translates into approximately $108,000 per month or nearly $1.3 million annually per hospital, based on 15 fewer readmissions each month at an average case rate of $7,200.

"Regularly receiving, reviewing and responding to data pays off," says Carol Everhart, RN, BA, director of clinical informatics at Curaspan. "Our trending data shows that after about six months of data usage, hospitals start cutting their readmission rates. They discover a trend, identify the root cause or causes behind it and then implement a plan to address it that improves patient care."

Readmissions reports are part of the portfolio of best-practices reports generated for hospitals by the Curaspan eDischarge™ software-as-a-service application, which provides hospitals with business intelligence for better decision-making and quantifiable results.

"Institutionalize more data discipline, and the lower costs and improved care from fewer readmissions nationwide could translate into more than $7.3 billion in savings," continues Everhart. "Even if just half of the other hospitals in the U.S. adopted the same approach, a few billion dollars could be cut from health-care costs and hundreds of thousands of patients saved from a return trip to the hospital."

At Franklin Square Hospital Center (FSHC) in Baltimore, Director of Case Management Jan Lear, RN, CMC, relies heavily on Curaspan data. The Curaspan Clinical Data Bank™, says Lear, is "the only source that tells me which facilities or home health-services are generating the most readmissions."

Reports in the Curaspan Clinical Intelligence Data Bank make it easy to track readmissions by post-acute provider, placement, diagnosis and physician. Whether reports are updated monthly or weekly, they enable hospitals to identify performance-improvement initiatives that have a positive impact on the transition of care and, by extension, the bottom line.

Lear and her staff are using the reports with post-acute partners to track readmissions by facility for congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, two of the primary reasons for readmissions to FSHC, and to develop protocols for improved outcomes.  

Just updated with a more modern and cohesive style which makes them even more user-friendly and easy to interpret, the reports are available in Crystal Reports, Excel and PDF and capture actionable patient-transition data on a wide range of topics. From readmission rates and average LOS to provider performance and network leakage, the Curaspan Clinical Intelligence Data Bank empowers hospital and post-acute provider staff to do more of what they do, better.

For more information about using the Curaspan Clinical Data Bank to cut preventable readmissions, join Carol Everhart, director of clinical informatics, for a webinar April 15 at 2 p.m. EDT. Go to Curaspan.com/Webinar to register.

Curaspan HIPAA-compliant software -- built with clinical expertise from case managers, discharge planners and social workers -- is easy to deploy and use and requires less than three hours of training. Over the past year, it has helped facilitate the smooth transition of almost 600,000 patients on behalf of hundreds of hospitals across the country. Curaspan works with many of the nation's top hospital and post-acute care providers, including Johns Hopkins Health System, New York Presbyterian, St. Thomas Health Services (part of Ascension Health), Vanguard Health Systems, Amedisys Home Health Services, American Medical Response, Gentiva Health Services, Golden LivingCenters, Kindred Healthcare, Life Care Centers of America and Sunbridge Health, among many others.

About Curaspan Health Group

Curaspan Health Group builds secure patient-transition networks for hospitals, post-acute providers and suppliers to optimize patient care. Curaspan software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications empower users with real-time, predictive decision-making data that enables all participants to continuously monitor care, improve communication and ensure compliance. This informatics exchange is integrated with the proprietary Curaspan Provider Data Bank, the industry's most comprehensive and up-to-date system of actionable patient-transition intelligence, and is complemented by the clinical process expertise of credentialed advisors. The Health Care Advisory Board and KLAS repeatedly have recognized Curaspan for its industry-leading software. Curaspan is headquartered in Newton, Mass. For more information please visit Curaspan.com.

SOURCE Curaspan Health Group