Feasibility of Using a Pediatric Call Center as Part of a Quality Improvement Effort to Prevent Hospital Readmission 1

• Use of call center nurses was a feasible strategy for placing post-hospitalization calls and provided some advantages to use of other staff.
• The effort required to make these calls was approximately 12 minutes per call.
• Understanding the barriers to compliance with discharge instructions provided the opportunity for improvement of discharge teaching.
• Readmission rates while not statistically significant were lower and length of stay was shortened.

The primary aim of this intervention was to assess the feasibility of using call center nurses who are experts in telephone triage to conduct post discharge telephone calls, as part of a quality improvement effort to prevent hospital readmission. Families of patients with bronchiolitis were called between 24 and 48 hours after discharge. The calls conducted by the nurses were efficient (average time was 12 minutes), and their assessments helped to identify gaps in inpatient family education. Overall, the project demonstrated the efficacy in readmission prevention by using nurses who staff a call center to conduct post-hospitalization telephone calls.