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Report: Technologies To Improve Transitions From Hospital To Home

Health care faces many difficult decisions and transitions to improve care quality, maximize efficiency, and enhance patient experience.  And it's where one process or level of care connects to another, the so-called 'handoffs' that represent fertile ground for improvement opportunities.

The Center for Technology and Aging has released an interesting report examining technologies that help improve transitions from hospital to home and reduce readmissions;
"Several technologies are widely available and have potential to support post-acute care transitions, but they are underutilized," said David Lindeman, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Technology and Aging. "Home-use technologies help decrease readmissions in a variety of ways, including engaging patients and caregivers in ways that promote better communication, medication adherence, and monitoring of chronic conditions."
Download the complete report at http://www.techandaging.org

The report covers four post-acute care transition technologies:
  • Medication adherence technologies - non-adherence is responsible for 33% to 69% of medication-related readmissions.
  • Medication reconciliation technologies - reducing adverse drug events.
  • Remote patient monitoring (RPM) technologies - including a chart describing seven popular RPM devices.
  • Health information and communication technologies (ICT) - personal health records, web-based social networking and remote training and supervision.
"According to the report, ICT enables timely access to vital health information. It points out that when ICT is used in conjunction with devices that monitor health parameters in the home, care becomes continuous rather than episodic. And, according to Dr. Lindeman, "care becomes patient-centered, rather than facility-centered."

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