Background: U.S. healthcare costs are rising due to the increase in polypharmacy, which is a potential risk factor for hospital readmission.1 In a cohort study of 5,507 patients with ≥10 discharge medications, more than 25% of them were readmitted.1 At one of the largest public county hospitals in the U.S., readmission rates for patients with high-volume home [...]

Background: Transitions from hospitals to the ambulatory setting are high risk periods for patients. Many interventions have been tried, with varying degrees of success, and often the problem has been with implementation rather than theoretical efficacy of the intervention.Methods: We developed, implemented, refined, and evaluated a multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary transitions intervention across two hospitals and 18 [...]

Background: Multiple studies have established that delays in discharge summary transmission were associated with higher rates of all-cause hospital readmissions.    It has been recently shown that delaying the completion of discharge summaries beyond 72 hours increased the risk of 30-day readmissions by 9%.  We had embarked on an initiative to improve the rate of discharge [...]

Background: Earlier discharge time is an important satisfaction metric for patients, maximizes the utilization of hospital beds, and reduces waste and capacity issues in EDs /PACUs. Overall, early discharge represents high-value care and responsible stewardship of a scarce resource. Our healthcare system assessed the discrepancy between bed demand and bed needs, finding 25% of Tuesday [...]