Potentially Preventable Hospitalizations: MonashWatch telehealth
self-reported journeys before and after acute admission
Abstract
Rationale aims and objectives Potentially preventable hospitalizations
(PPH) are a challenge. What happens before hospital admission? Are there
crucial tipping points before admissions in at-risk cohorts’
trajectories? HealthLinksChronicCare (HLCC) hospital risk-prediction
algorithms using admission, diagnosis, and lifestyle data identifies
at-patients. MW monitors HLCC patients with outbound phone calls using
telehealth – the Patient Journey Record System with alerts representing
a real-time anticipated risk of PPH. Health Coaches triage and intervene
to optimize GP, hospital and community service utilization to reduce the
risk of PPH. Aims To describe a time series of telehealth phone calls
related to an acute admission ( 10 days) to investigate tipping points
in self-reported biopsychosocial environmental concerns (total alerts)
and or condition symptoms of concern (red alerts). Methods MW
participants had an acute (non-surgical) admission and >44
calls between 23/12/16 - 11/10/17. The Patient Journey Record System
(PaJR) and Victorian Admitted Episode Data/ Emergency Minimum Dataset
provided longitudinal data. Descriptive time series analysis employed
Pettitt’s homogeneity test to detect ‘tipping points’ using XLSTAT
package. Findings One hundred three patients aged 74 ± 15.4 years, with
59% male and 61% female, provided 764 call records around admission(s)
and 22,715 records over 10 months. Total alerts and red alerts were
higher in the 10 days before and after admission. Total alerts
significantly increased (tipped) at day 3 before hospitalisation
persisting until 10 days. Red alerts increased (tipped) 1 day before
admission and remained high following discharge. Discussion and
Conclusion Self-report in phone calls describe a pre-hospital phase of
‘post-hospital syndrome’ (PHS), which began at least 10 days before
admission and persisted after discharge. Wide-ranging health,
psychosocial, and environmental concerns preceded a tipping point into
acute symptoms. Telehealth monitoring of biopsychosocial, as well as
disease, concerns require further investigation.