HEALTH
What is The Role of Home Care Support in Reducing Hospital Readmissions
While hospital readmissions aren’t always preventable, many can be if the home health team and physician work together to keep patients healthy and safe between visits. Here are ways home health agencies can fend off readmissions to the hospital and reduce their impact on the overall costs of healthcare.
Ensuring Proper Medication Management
Medication management at home care support by respect.com.au is a strategy that involves monitoring and planning all medications used by patients to treat their illness or condition, including prescription and over-the-counter medications, vitamins and supplements. It is a critical component of many patient care programs and can save healthcare organizations money.
One of the biggest challenges in providing effective medication management is ensuring that patients understand their medications and how to take them properly. Some healthcare providers are incorporating medication education into their home care services to address this challenge.
Caregivers are also trained to administer medications and monitor their progress, side effects and other relevant information. It helps reduce hospital readmissions by putting patients in the driver’s seat and providing them with the tools they need to manage their health.
While medications are vital in patient care, they can be challenging to take. It is especially true for people who have difficulty remembering to take their medication or cannot self-administer it.
Patients are often confused about how to take their medicines properly and may not have enough knowledge to make informed decisions. In addition, their conditions or medication regimens can change. It can cause them to take medications incorrectly and experience adverse effects.
Preventing Fall Risks
The most effective fall prevention programs use a multifactorial approach to identify and address all factors that can lead to falls. These factors may include medical, behavioural, and environmental factors.
While home-based falls often result from an older person’s physical limitations, they can also be caused by mental challenges and other health issues that affect their ability to move around safely at home.
As a result, caregivers need to take the time to carefully assess and address these potential problems so that their elderly loved ones can continue to enjoy a safe and comfortable lifestyle at home.
Carers can also be a good resource for determining a home care patient’s risk of falling. It is because they are familiar with the elderly person’s daily activities, and they can provide a valuable perspective on their risk of falling and any specific challenges they might be facing.
Identifying High-Risk Patients
In-home caregivers may also identify high-risk patients by reviewing the patient’s medical records, including hospitalizations and emergency room visits. This information can then be used to recommend the best course of action.
It can be done by comparing the patient’s comorbidities, medication history, and current status with available data before hospitalization. These data can be extracted from hospital discharge documents and a patient’s health insurance information. Others can be obtained from a hospital’s electronic medical record or the medical record of another health system.
Monitoring Patients Between Visits
During the discharge planning process, in-home care providers can provide patients with discharge instructions and reminders of their follow-up appointments with their primary care physicians and specialists. They can also help ensure these follow-ups are incorporated into a patient’s personalized care plan.
In-home care professionals can also assist patients with their discharge paperwork, including medication records and health history information. It can help reduce patients’ time in the hospital, improve their experience, and lower their risks of readmissions.
Another way that home care support can aid in reducing hospital readmissions is by monitoring patients between visits. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) involves using digital technologies to collect patient data and transmit that information to healthcare providers, who can review the data and make recommendations.
It can help reduce the time patients spend in the hospital, improve their experience, lower their risks of readmissions, and prevent them from falling ill or developing complications between hospital visits.
By remotely monitoring patients between hospital visits, doctors can identify early signs of problems so that they can begin treatment as soon as possible. It can be especially important for patients with chronic conditions like diabetes or heart disease.
Home care support can facilitate this by giving patients text or phone alerts when their condition changes. It can help patients stay informed about their health and adherence to their care plans, which can increase their engagement. It can also save healthcare providers and patients time and money.
Harper Harrison is a reporter for The Hear UP. Harper got an internship at the NPR and worked as a reporter and producer. harper has also worked as a reporter for the Medium. Harper covers health and science for The Hear UP.