Hospitals to patients: Go away and don’t come back soon

The Wall Street Journal has a good summary of the situation in Don’t Come Back, Hospitals Say. Among the programs featured:

  • An animated “virtual discharge advocate” named Louise who helps explain home care to departing patients
  • Transition coaches who call patients 2 or 3 days after discharge
  • Project RED (for Re-Engineered Discharge), which provides individualized instruction starting well before the patient leaves the hospital

Early results suggest these approaches can reduce readmissions by 20 to 30 percent, which is a shockingly high figure considering how basic such steps are…

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HealthBusinessBlog/~3/OY7mg_8jepE/

Soaring Health Costs Pinned On Medical Devices

The latest devices – from heart valves and defibrillators to artificial knees and hips – are usually significantly more expensive than older devices, and the intense marketing surrounding the introduction of new devices has become a major driver of rising health care costs.bengTWZgcL8

http://feeds.kaiserhealthnews.org/~r/khn/~3/bengTWZgcL8/medical-device-costs-fiscal-times.aspx