Avoiding Readmissions—Support Systems Required After Discharge to Continue Rapid Recovery?

Increasing participation in alternative payment models such as episode-of-care has become a driving force to improve outcomes while decreasing cost. Reducing the hospital length of stay and discharging patients to home have been shown to decrease readmissions, thereby achieving these goals. The purpose of this study was to determine if utilization of a patient management support system, TAVHealth™ in our clinical pathway would reduce our readmission rates during the episode-of-care. We retrospectively reviewed 1874 total joint arthroplasties, 1281 TJAs in the pre-TAVHealth™ group (2009–2012) and 593 TJRs in the post TAVHealth™ group (2013–2014). Despite a low length of stay (1.2 days) there was a significant reduction in readmissions from 205 (16.0%) to 54 (9.2%) with incorporation of this patient management support system into our clinical pathway.