WHY YOUR HOSPITAL NEEDS ACUTE IN-PATIENT REHABILITATION TO SUCCEED IN VALUE-BASED CARE

Valued-based care presents a number

of challenges to today’s operating models. In order to succeed in the new environment, it is imperative to understand the role your post-acute assets play, and how to manage rehabilitation programs within it.

These five takeaways

were presented in a webinar on Oct 27. The entire webinar can be accessed at ModernHealthcare.com/InpatientRehab.

Improve functionality for acute care facilities

Along with providing a higher quality of care to patients, IRFs also complements the functionality of acute care facilities by adding tools and more appropriate settings to better manage patients with post-acute needs. This results in shorter length of stay for patients and lower readmission rates. “Our length-of-stay efficiency is 20 percent higher than the national averages,” Edwards says. “Almost 75 to 80 percent of our patients are going home. That’s what we view as kind of the hallmark of success.”

Line up with consumer preferences

IRFs are trending in preference among patients over other post-acute services, such as skilled nursing facilities. Andy Ward, senior vice president of Kindred Rehabilitation Services, believes this is partly due to a negative connotation associated with the term “nursing facility.” Also, IRFs are shown to have higher discharge rates for patients and more capabilities to handle higher volumes of high-acuity patients. “For example, clinical requirements for an inpatient stay call for three hours of therapy a day, and the vast majority of skilled nursing facilities simply aren’t providing that kind of therapy,” Ward says.

Evaluate the quality if care you're providing to patients

In a value-based world, it’s important for health systems to evaluate how they can improve the care they’re providing to patients. Implementing an inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) is a strong way to drive value-based outcomes such as lower mortality rates and fewer emergency department visits. According to Geoffrey Edwards, senior vice president of post-acute services at Lancaster General Health, patient satisfaction scores have increased 90% to 98% since his organization began offering IRF services.

Provide opportunities to serve higher acuity patients

IRFs are an important clinical pathway for neurologic, trauma, orthopedic and chronically complex populations. They have the ability to free space within acute-care hospitals and provide greater visibility and clinical programming opportunities for these high-intensity care areas. “We knew we needed to improve, because most of the patients who were higher acuity, we were sending outside the system. This was a hardship for many of those families that we were caring for,” Edwards says. With IRFs, facilities have more time and more resources to focus on high acuity patients.

Gain opportunities in value-base earnings

A common misconception with IRFs is that they are a higher cost level of care. But as we shift from a fee-to-service to value-based world, people must realize the financial data supporting that misconception does not reflect patient acuity or outcomes. "Consider these realities: I know my length of stay is going to be shorter. I know that I am getting 75% to 80% of my patients going home. And I know readmission rates are extremely low,” Edwards says. "That contributes significantly to the overall general financial strength of a health system.”