Can Clinical Pathways Reduce Readmission Rates?
Clinical pathways have been making an impact on health care, including long-term care, since the 1980s. In addition to standardizing resident care, this type of care can help reduce costs, reduce outcome variation, and support evidence-based standards of care.
Limiting resident readmissions is a significant focus for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, one that’s been given renewed attention in the last several years. How successfully a Skilled Nursing Facility limits readmissions plays an important factor in determining the center’s quality measures score on the 5-Star Quality Ratings System.
Implementing clinical pathways can bring uniformity in protocols to reduce errors, streamline care, and improve outcomes for residents.
Read on for a look at three ways these programs play a role in reducing readmission rates for SNFs.
Clinical Pathways Ensure Collaborative Care to Improve Resident Outcomes
Clinical pathways can reduce readmissions in a number of ways. One way is by promoting interdisciplinary coordination between rehab services and other providers. This ensures all members of an SNF’s staff are on the same page to provide efficient, coordinated care.
Because pathways are tied to specific conditions, residents benefit from receiving the most appropriate care as early and efficiently as possible. This ensures residents and their families are fully educated about their condition and goals, making them more engaged in care and recovery.
Essentially, a pathway implemented for a specific medical condition or surgical procedure will identify high-leverage care through professional collaboration. This type of care leads to improved functional outcomes with fewer complications — and as a result, fewer hospital readmissions.
Clinical Pathways Attract More Residents, Reduce Costs, and Lead to High Quality Ratings
Reducing resident readmissions through clinical pathways can substantially raise your SNF’s quality rating, which can bring in more residents through both word-of-mouth and referrals.
Additionally, the interdisciplinary collaboration provided by pathways helps promote positive outcomes. When residents receive a higher quality of care, they are less likely to transfer to an acute care facility and are able to better tolerate rehab services such as physical therapy. This allows them to gain more independence and often to be discharged to home more quickly.
Clinical Pathways Help Reduce Variations
Another way clinical pathways decrease readmissions is by reducing unnecessary documentation for residents needing care after a hip or knee replacement or following a cardiovascular-related illness. This is done by reducing unnecessary variations in resident care.
With other alternative payment models, for example, two residents having the same hip surgery can have drastically different outcomes, depending on the surgeon and variability of acute care. This can make it difficult to determine best practices for efficient resident care and outcome.
Pathways allow flexibility for variations that represent a resident’s specific condition. So any unnecessary variation in therapy services and outcomes between residents can be substantially reduced.
By identifying a resident’s current health status at any point in time, measuring areas of improvement, and promoting interdisciplinary care, clinical pathways play a key role in reducing hospital readmissions and allowing SNFs to provide ideal outcomes in the most cost-effective way possible.
Source https://www.apexrehabsolutions.com/blog/can-clinical-pathways-reduce-readmission-rates/
