COST, HOSPITAL READMISSION, AND EMERGENCY ROOM USE: A COMPARISON OF TWO HOME HEALTH PROGRAMS.
Contributors: Virginia Commonwealth University.
Published: 1991
Number of pages: 153
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Health Care Management.
Description: This investigation compared two home health intervention strategies, a liaison home health program, and a traditional home health program, to determine their effect on costs, hospital readmission rate, and emergency room visits. The design for this study was comparative descriptive. A retrospective record review was conducted from January 1, 1990 to June 30, 1990, following an index discharge of patients from the hospital. A random sample (N = 84) was drawn from a list of patients from each hospital who had at least one of the following diseases: congestive heart failure, cerebrovascular accidents, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes. Two subgroups resulted (n = 42 each). Group A (traditional program) was composed of patients from a not-for-profit community hospital and Group B (liaison program) was composed of patients from an academic medical center hospital.

Demographic data were analyzed by frequency and percent; mean costs of home health nursing visits were computed and a student's t-test was used to compare the difference between groups. A Poisson regression model was used to compare numbers of hospital readmissions and emergency room visits across groups.

There were no statistically significant differences in costs of nursing visits nor subsequent readmissions to the hospital when comparing a liaison home health program with a traditional home health program. Numbers of emergency room visits were lower for the traditional program, and the difference was statistically significant when comparing the two programs.

Inability to show significant outcomes in the study was attributed to the wide disparity in demographic characteristics between the groups. Conclusions about the findings are based on assumptions about the target population for the study. While patients from the two home health programs seemed similar, fundamental differences in the populations from the two hospitals from which the sample was drawn is thought to have contributed to the differences between groups.

Recommendations for future research include comparison of a liaison home health program and a traditional home health program from the academic medical center hospital, a larger sample size, and matching subjects for analysis of data.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-12, Section: B, page: 6321.

Thesis (PH.D.)--VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY, 1991.

School code: 2383.