The impact of an interprofessional care transitions clinic on readmission rates and costs

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the Interprofessional Care Transitions Clinic (ICTC) in reducing preventable readmissions and their associated costs among Medicare/Medicaid patients. A prospective cohort study was conducted among adults who were discharged from the University of Maryland Prince George’s Hospital Center to assess the comparative effectiveness of a clinic-based intervention in terms of readmission events, potentially avoidable utilization, length of stay, and hospital charges. Outcomes were evaluated at 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months post-discharge. There were statistically significant differences in the following outcomes (follow-up period): proportion of readmissions (3 months), potentially avoidable utilization (1 month), and mean medical charges for ICTC patients compared to non-ICTC patients (1 month). This program was aimed at testing the impact of having an interprofessional team focused on providing holistic patient-centered care.

KEYWORDS:

• Patient readmission
• patient transfer
• economics
• patient-discharge outcome
• interprofessional clinic
• utilization

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820.2022.2095363

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the following sponsors for their financial support in the implementation of the ICTC program:

• The Maryland Community Health Resources Commission (MCHRC);

• University of Maryland Capital Region Health (UMCRH) and University of Maryland Prince George’s Hospital Center (UMPGHC);

• Cardinal Health, Inc.

We thank the leaders and staff of these organizations for their support in working with the ICTC to accomplish expanding access to primary, preventative, and chronic disease management services, thereby achieving the goal of decreasing hospital readmissions and ED visits.

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.