Preventable Hospital Readmission Initiative

Grant Date: 09.07.2011
Amount: $140,000

The Brooklyn Hospital Center  $20,000 
Lenox Hill Hospital  $20,000
Mount Sinai Medical Center  $20,000
New York Methodist Hospital  $20,000
St. Barnabas Hospital   $20,000
St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center  $20,000
Staten Island University Hospital  $20,000 
 

Preventable hospital readmissions are dangerous to patients, costly, and reflect poor quality of care.  Although hospitals throughout the greater New York area are engaged in a range of activities to prevent readmissions, hospital staffs have expressed a need for resources and support to help them conduct robust efforts to analyze the extent of the problem and implement strategies to reduce readmissions.  To address this need and stimulate further action, the United Hospital Fund has launched the Preventable Hospital Readmission Initiative. 

In the initiative's first phase, the Fund has awarded $140,000 in planning grants to seven hospitals to enable them to study targeted groups of readmitted patients through analysis of administrative data, chart reviews, and interviews with patients, their family caregivers, and their community-based physicians.  Staff from the Fund and the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) will work with participating hospitals to develop a standardized interview template for use with patients and their family caregivers as well as a chart abstraction tool.  In the project's second phase--set for early 2012--participating hospitals will have the opportunity to submit proposals on implementating specific interventions shaped by information gained during the project's first phase.