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Successful Patient Discharge Starts at Admission: How Get Well Can Drive Efficient Release from the Hospital

Joshua Young, VP of Interactive Patient Care and Smart Rooms

The inpatient journey for patients is ever-evolving, and care teams have adapted workflows to improve these journeys. Traditionally, hospital discharge planning occurred towards the end of an inpatient stay, leading to rushed procedures, incomplete education, and higher risk of readmissions. Today, however, Interactive Patient Care (IPC) solutions are leading a paradigm shift: successful patient discharge truly begins at admission.  

In the world of complex care transitions, many factors can contribute to poor patient outcomes: unclear discharge processes, poor care coordination, lack of resources, low health literacy, and limited ability to manage self care, etc.  Each of these can result in increased probability for readmission.  In the world of healthcare, readmissions are directly correlated to significant expenditures for health systems. In fact, a single readmission costs a health system about $16,0001. The annual cost of care for patients that are readmitted to the hospital within 30 days for a previously treated condition is a staggering $52.4 billion2.  

The Paradigm Shift

The premise that discharge planning should start earlier in the health journey underscores a new-age holistic approach to patient care. From the moment a patient enters a healthcare ecosystem, they are not only being treated for their immediate medical needs, but also being prepped for a seamless transition back to their home or next care setting. This approach involves a number of key assessments and touch points along the way that Get Well can help support. 

Get Well: A catalyst for a full hospital patient journey

The most efficient way to tackle care transitions is by providing a seamless patient experience (from inpatient through discharge and beyond) that automates non-clinical tasks, keeps patients engaged in their care, and supports needs related to Social Determinants of Health (SDOH). Get Well provides solutions across the board to help with each of these key focus areas: 

Automation of non-clinical tasks

  • Through Get Well, patients can self-manage things like room controls, meal ordering, accessing education, and viewing entertainment, allowing staff to spend more time with high acuity patients that require more care.
  • Get Well helps to automate messages texted directly to patient devices for filling medications before discharge, post-discharge check-ins, SDOH screening, and follow-up appointment scheduling.
  • The Get Well solution allows patients to log service requests and directly route them to appropriate departments within the facility, eliminating the need for nurses to act as an intermediary.

Keep patients engaged in their care through continuous education

  • Get Well provides friction-free access to secure and personalized patient engagement through an app-less mobile experience or front-and-center smartTV in the patient room.
  • Get Well delivers relevant actionable information on what to expect, both now and next, in a patient’s care journey through bite-sized health education, care team information, and clear instructions for patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs).

Provide early assessment to support patients’ unique needs

  • Get Well helps reduce staff burden for SDOH screening and allows patients to privately respond on their own device, on their own time. Responses can be tracked back to the appropriate electronic health record (EHR) fields for efficient, reliable reporting.
  • Personalized resource navigation is offered for all patients at a Get Well facility, either with automation or staffed navigators connected to local resources.

The care transition journey is pivotal in ensuring that patients receive continuous, effective, and compassionate care. By integrating seamless solutions like those offered by Get Well, healthcare providers increase the rate of successful discharges starting at admission. This holistic approach not only enhances the patient experience but also frees up valuable time for healthcare staff to focus on delivering personalized care. Get Well offers discharge solutions for both general and pediatric patient populations, proven to help organizations ease care transitions. Learn how our holistic approach to inpatient experiences can help your organization.

Sources:

  1. Overview of Clinical Conditions With Frequent and Costly Hospital Readmissions by Payer, 2018. https://hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb278-Conditions-Frequent-Readmissions-By-Payer-2018.jsp#:~:text=In%202018%2C%20there%20were%20a,average%20readmission%20cost%20of%20%2415%2C200  ↩︎
  2. Is the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program Associated with Reduced Hospital Readmissions? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9113654/  ↩︎
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