But studies have shown that anywhere from 15 to 25 percent of people who are discharged from the hospital will be readmitted in the next 30 days or less. Medicare alone spends approximately $17 billion per year on return visits, many of which are avoidable. If you think your patient wasn’t happy to be admitted the first time, wait until they have to come back. This is not the kind of repeat business that hospitals are striving for. In fact, the Medicare Advisory commission reported in 2007 that a staggering three-quarters of these readmissions could potentially be avoided through better care and enhanced patient education.
Since 2012, hospitals are being penalized by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) under the new federal healthcare law for having higher than reasonable readmission rates. Reducing readmissions makes good business “cents.” There are many reasons why a patient returns to the hospital after being discharged. And it’s not because they missed the fruit cups and fancy patient gowns. Sometimes people get sick again, and it’s completely unpreventable.
But sometimes a readmission is due to some sort of medical error during the initial hospitalization or a misunderstanding of discharge or medication instructions.
Unfortunately, no two hospital discharges are created equal, and often a patient is more focused on slipping out of their scratchy hospital gown than reading communication about after-care handed to them as they are wheeled out the door. According to a study by AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality), patients who have a clear understanding of their after-care are 30 percent less likely to be readmitted to the hospital or visit the emergency room than patients who were not provided access to this information or failed to assimilate it.
This statistic is a powerful motivator for hospitals to find creative ways to educate and empower their patients with the tools they need to best take care of themselves once they roll past the automatic doors. In a world where time is a precious commodity for healthcare workers trying to do more with less, how can hospitals consistently give their patients all of the information they need while engaging them in the process? And how can they succeed without consuming valuable clinical nursing time?
Written materials can be a small part of that solution, but they have limitations. To best retain the information taught, patients really need to feel a connection with the material, understand it, and figure out how it relates to their care and unique situation. And that’s tough to do on a trifold piece of paper you can easily stuff into your purse. Interpreting medical instructions and being able to correctly apply the information to their own healthcare and life is a crucial part of reducing readmission rates. And to do this, patients need something more personal that engages them on multiple levels.
Though we retain only approximately 10 percent of what we see, we happen to hold onto about 90 percent of what we see, hear, and do. Rewind that statistic and play it again! It’s important – and it brings us to video.
Video can be a hospital’s new best friend in the readmission reduction battle. Allowing patients to connect emotionally to information using multiple senses, through video, can help them better process their after-care instructions. Instead of asking a healthcare worker to repeat themselves, a patient can hit rewind and go over the key points as often as they like. Video is a consistent medium, dispensing the same quality of information to each and every patient, each and every time. Standardizing, yet at the same time humanizing information when educating patients is a time-saver for healthcare workers, a cost saver for hospitals and a lifesaver for patients. And video can do so much more.
Well thought out graphics can complement the video material and be beneficial in bridging educational barriers that invariably exist when different reading levels may inhibit comprehension. Language impediments can be tackled readily. Increased visuals such as illustrations, sound and motion can convey difficult medical information in a manner that is more universally understandable to people of all languages. Different language versions, as well as closed captioning, make these videos accessible to a wide range of culturally diverse patients at the click of a menu. But maybe, most importantly, video allows you to be in control of who addresses your patients, the information you want conveyed, and how you want it said.
For instance, a nurse speaking about smoking cessation techniques one-on-one with a patient may be effective, or it can come across as a lecture. Been there, heard that. But allowing each patient to hear from a lung cancer patient about how tobacco has impacted their life, and how they quit, can connect on a more emotional and personal level, plus lead to better compliance among patients trying to stop smoking.
Bottom line: hospitals can reduce hospital readmissions with patient education videos. Using them as a tool in the patient safety arsenal simply makes sense.
But how much do patient education videos cost? Maybe not as much as you think. Though production quality and prices can range significantly, video is worth the initial outlay, especially when you factor in the cost benefits of decreasing readmission rates. Combining clinical information in a compelling manner can give patients some oft lacking emotional context to their care, provide better connections and consistency, increase compliance, and reduce readmission rates. And where does that leave your patients? Home, sweet home.