Print Blog: Communicate, Motivate, Educate, Enhance, Celebrate, Animate, and Promote with Print and Promotional Products

On October 1st 2012 Medicare began fining hospitals that have too many patients readmitted within 30 days of being discharged. On average these fines will be about $125,000 per hospital in the first year and can rise to 3% of Medicare payments under the new health care law. All of a sudden reducing readmissions is a top priority.

According to MedPAC the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission about 12% of the Medicare beneficiaries that are hospitalized are later readmitted for potentially preventable problems. Often these readmissions are caused by something as simple as unclear discharge instructions or an out of date medications list, as well as lack of communication between hospital staff and outside providers involved in post discharge care.

A HealthLeaders Media article dated December 27 2010 titled 12 ways to reduce hospital readmissions identifies Patient understanding as a critical component of reducing readmissions.

"Patients may nod, and say they understand what they're supposed to do after they leave the hospital.....caregivers need to understand that their patients are often heavily medicated, stressed, groggy and confused. And that their disease state may impair their ability to understand what they are being told, much less remember it two days later."

Select hospitals have found that a simple Discharge Folder or Discharge Kit, that organizes all the instructions from numerous departments into an easy to use kit can make a big difference in increasing patient understanding and ensuring they remember detailed discharge instructions for weeks after leaving the hospital.

Columbus Regional Healthcare System in North Carolina and Healthelink in Buffalo NY are organizations utilizing an inexpensive but effective Discharge Kit or Discharge Folder to reduce readmissions and lower costs.

The simple discharge folder is an inexpensive accordion folder that provides a 12 pocket, durable and portable kit that can house the entire discharge plan, from numerous caregivers, in an organized secure and easy to use fashion that makes it much easier to understand.

It's not high tech, it's not expensive, but it's completely customizable and it attacks one of the critical factors leading to readmissions, patient understanding. Clearly the cost of hospital readmissions is going up, but there are simple common sense ways to fight this battle that don't have to cost a fortune. A discharge folder with a detailed discharge plan is a great place to start.