Anatomy of a hospital ‘bounce-back’ #preventreadmissions
Published at Fierce Healthcare on March 5, 2010
As a physician who works as a hospitalist and a primary-care doctor, I understand the complexity of discharging a patient from the hospital, and all the moving pieces that must come together to successfully transition a patient back to the outpatient setting. If even one link in the chain fails, a patient often ends up back in the emergency department and/or readmitted to the hospital as, in hospital-speak, a “bounce-back.”
These readmissions are like a canary in a coal mine, 
(http://mydoctorsf NULL.wpengine NULL.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ambulance2 NULL.jpg)alerting us that our hospital-outpatient continuum is seriously disconnected and dysfunctional. And Medicare is now tracking readmissions for several diagnoses while threatening to withhold payment to hospitals for readmissions.
Read more at Fierce Healthcare by clicking here (http://www NULL.fiercehealthcare NULL.com/story/anatomy-hospital-bounce-back-readmission/2010-03-05)
About Paul Abramson MD
Personal Physician, Quantified Doctor, Founder of My Doctor Medical Group. Clinical Faculty at UCSF School of Medicine. Bio (http://paulabramsonmd NULL.com).
