IMPORTANCE Medicare payment initiatives are spurring efforts to reduce potentially avoidable hospitalizations. OBJECTIVE To determine whether training and support for implementation of a nursing home (NH) quality improvement program (Interventions to Reduce Acute Care Transfers [INTERACT]) reduced hospital admissions and emergency department (ED) visits. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This analysis compared changes in hospitalization and ED visit rates between the preintervention and postintervention periods for NHs randomly assigned to receive training and implementation support on INTERACT to changes in control NHs. The analysis focused on 85 NHs (36 717 NH residents) that reported no use of INTERACT during the preintervention period. INTERVENTIONS The study team provided training and support for implementing INTERACT, which included tools that help NH staff identify and evaluate acute changes in NH resident condition and document communication between physicians; care paths to avoid hospitalization when safe and feasible; and advance care planning and quality improvement tools.MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES All-cause hospitalizations, hospitalizations considered potentially avoidable, 30-day hospital readmissions, and ED visits without admission. All-cause hospitalization rates were calculated for all resident-days, high-risk days (0-30 days after NH admission), and lower-risk days (Ն31 days after NH admission).
RESULTSWe found that of 85 NHs, those that received implementation training and support exhibited statistically nonsignificant reductions in hospitalization rates compared with control NHs (net difference, −0.13 per 1000 resident-days; P = .25), hospitalizations during the first 30 days after NH admission (net difference, −0.37 per 1000 resident-days; P = .48), hospitalizations during periods more than 30 days after NH admission (net difference, −0.09 per 1000 resident-days; P = .39), 30-day readmission rates (net change in rate among hospital discharges, −0.01; P = .36), and ED visits without admission (net difference, 0.02 per 1000 resident-days; P = .83). Intervention NHs exhibited a reduction in potentially avoidable hospitalizations overall (net difference, −0.18 per 1000 resident-days, P = .01); however, this effect was not robust to a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCETraining and support for INTERACT implementation as carried out in this study had no effect on hospitalization or ED visit rates in the overall population of residents in participating NHs. The results have several important implications for implementing quality improvement initiatives in NHs. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT02177058
Increased reported use of core INTERACT tools was associated with significantly greater reductions in all-cause hospitalizations and PAHs in both intervention and control SNFs, suggesting that motivation and incentives to reduce hospitalizations were more important than the training and support provided in the trial in improving outcomes. Further research is needed to better understand the most effective strategies to motivate SNFs to implement and sustain quality improvement programs such as INTERACT.
Key Points
Question
In the Medicare Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, did mortality from all causes increase during the 30 days after hospital discharge among black vs white patients 65 years and older?
Findings
In a cohort study using a time-series analysis including 3263 acute care hospitals, short-term mortality decreased more among black patients than white patients with acute myocardial infarction. Mortality increased among white patients with heart failure, but trends over time did not differ between black and white patients; and mortality trends over time were stable and similar between black and white patients with pneumonia.
Meaning
This study suggests that value-based payment policy was not associated with an increase in mortality among black populations, but causes of increasing mortality among white patients warrant investigation.
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