AHRQ to present updated Hospital Guide to Reducing Medicaid Readmissions

AHRQ to present updated Hospital Guide to Reducing Medicaid Readmissions

AHRQ’s Hospital Guide to Reducing Medicaid Readmissions is the first federal toolkit to assist hospital teams in designing and delivering transitional care to better serve the adult Medicaid population. This guide has been field tested by individual hospitals and groups of hospital quality improvement collaboratives, and feedback from its first release (2014) has been very positive. Based on a detailed series of coaching and feedback calls with safety net hospitals, the guide and its customizable tools have been updated to better offer evidence-based strategies to address the distinct clinical, social, and behavioral needs of Medicaid patients.

 The guide is organized into six sections, with an easy-to-remember framework, “ASPIRE”:

1. A - Analyze Your Data. Describes key data collection and analyses required to understand the patterns and root causes of Medicaid Readmissions.

2. S - Survey Your Current Readmissions Reduction Efforts. Gives guidance on how to inventory key readmission reduction efforts within the hospital, including relationships with community partners.

3. P - Plan a Multi-Faceted Data-Informed Portfolio of Strategies. Explains how to develop a specific aim statement and multi-faceted, and data-informed portfolio of strategies to reduce Medicaid readmissions.

4. I - Implement Whole Person Transitional Care. Highlights Medicaid-specific considerations to incorporate into standard hospital-based transitional care processes.

5. R - Reach Out to Collaborate with Cross-Setting Partners. Advises on Medicaid-relevant partners and how to engage in effective, results-oriented collaboration with providers and staff in other organizations.

6. E - Enhance Services for High-Risk Patients. Offers guidance on enhanced services that your hospital may choose to offer patients at the highest risk of readmission.

Join this webinar to hear an orientation to the guide and its tools, and the evaluation findings from its implementation with safety net hospitals.

Click here to register for the webinar, which will take place on September 9^th, from 3 to 4:30pm ET.