Psychoeducation for chronic cognitive impairment and reduced early readmissions amongst pulmonary inpatients

ABSTRACT

Patients with chronic pulmonary disease have been found to have among the highest rates of early (30 days) readmissions by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Proactive identification and psychoeducational intervention for the effect of chronic cognitive impairment on readmission have not been tested in this population. This is a pre–post quality improvement study for service-wide inpatient pulmonary readmission rates in chronic pulmonary disease. We examined the impact of screening patients for likely cognitive impairment and providing patients/families with psychoeducation regarding ‘forgetfulness’ on 30-day readmission rates on an inpatient pulmonary service. We observed a 50% decline in early readmissions (25.7% > 12.3%) for the inpatient pulmonary service after initiation of screening and psychoeducation of patients/families for improved adherence despite cognitive impairment (t = −2.53, df= 17, p = 0.011). A randomly assigned, controlled clinical trial is warranted.

KEYWORDS:

• Readmissions
• cognitive impairment
• healthcare utilization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.