(NEC Corporation of America with CC license/flickr)
According to U-M researchers, hospitals that voluntarily participated in value-based health care reforms, such as the Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records program, were better at keeping patients from returning to the hospital within 30 days for three common diagnoses than the government’s mandatory program that penalizes acute care facilities for high readmission rates. Andrew Ryan, associate professor in the School of Public Health, was lead author of the study. “This, to us, was encouraging and makes us think there is a reason to believe these value programs are reinforcing the broader push to value-based care,” says Ryan. “Our findings show the importance of a multi-pronged Medicare strategy to improve quality and value.” Researcher found that the combined impact of the three voluntary programs to improve hospital quality and value resulted in 2,400 fewer people out of nearly 275,000 heading back to the hospital, and a savings in 2015 of $32 million from reduced readmissions.
