Results Summary and Professional Abstract

Results Summary

Results Summary

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What was the research about?

After a hospital stay, patients may go home to recover or to another healthcare site, such as a nursing home. But if they don’t get the right support, patients may have problems with recovery and need to return to the hospital. Hospitals use different strategies to help patients during care transitions.

In this project, the research team did three studies. Study 1 asked patients and caregivers what matters most to them during a care transition. Studies 2 and 3 compared the effect of groups of care transition strategies that hospitals may use on patient health, including how often patients returned to the hospital within 30 days. Study 3 also looked at how patients rated their health at least 51 days after leaving the hospital.

What were the results?

What mattered most to patients and caregivers was to

• Feel cared for by providers
• Know who oversees the care transition
• Feel ready to take care of themselves when leaving the hospital

Hospitals that used strategies to share information among healthcare sites had larger decreases in the rate of patients who returned within 30 days than hospitals that didn’t use them.

Compared with patients from hospitals using other strategies, those from hospitals that worked to improve trust in hospitals, use plain language, and coordinate care were more likely to report improved

• Physical and mental health
• Sleep quality
• Ability to do daily activities
• Pain levels

These patients were also less likely to return to the hospital or emergency room. But they were more likely to spend at least one day at another healthcare site in the 30 days after leaving the hospital.

What did the research team do?

Study 1. The research team interviewed 138 patients and 110 family caregivers from six health networks. The team used these results and reviewed published studies to make a list of care transition strategies.

Study 2. The research team surveyed 370 hospitals about the strategies they use. The study included health records for 2,369,601 patients with Medicare who were in one of these hospitals between 2009 to 2014. The team looked at who returned within 30 days. Among patients, 84 percent were white, 11 percent were black, and 5 percent were another or unknown race. Also, 57 percent were women.

Study 3. The research team surveyed 42 hospitals on their use of strategies. At least 51 days after leaving these hospitals, 7,939 patients completed surveys about hospital discharge and their health. Among patients, 79 percent were white, 10 percent were black, and 11 percent were other or unknown races. The average age was 72, and 53 percent were women.

Patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals helped design and conduct the study.

What were the limits of the study?

Factors other than the care transition strategies may have affected the study results.

Future studies could look further at how health providers can support care transitions.

How can people use the results?

Hospitals can use these results when planning care transitions.

Professional Abstract

Professional Abstract

Objective

To examine which groups of care transition strategies improve 30-day readmission and patient-reported outcomes among patients discharged from acute care and critical access hospitals

Study Design

Design Element	Description
Study Design	Mixed methods observational: cohort study
Population	Qualitative: 138 patients and 110 family caregivers from 6 health networks across the United States Retrospective: Medicare claims data from 2,369,601 patients discharged from acute care and critical access hospitals between 2009 and 2014 Prospective: 7,939 patients with Medicare discharged from acute care and critical access hospitals
Interventions/ Comparators	Retrospective: Different groupings of transitional care strategies with defining features of care plan, shared decision-making, identifying high risk, medication reconciliation, cross-setting information exchange Prospective: Different groupings of transitional care strategies with defining features of patient communication and care management; home-based trust, plain language, and coordination; hospital-based trust, plain language, and coordination; patient/family caregiver assessment and information exchange among providers; assessment and teach back
Outcomes	Qualitative: desired outcomes of care transitions Retrospective: 30-day hospital readmissions Prospective: patient-reported physical health, mental health, sleep quality, pain in the last week, participation in daily activities, healthcare utilization
Timeframe	Retrospective: 30-day post-hospital discharge follow-up for study outcomes Prospective: At least 51-day follow-up for study outcomes

Researchers conducted a multiple component study to examine the effects of care transition strategies among recently discharged patients, including a longitudinal retrospective cohort study observing changes in 30-day readmission rates and a prospective cohort study observing patient-reported outcomes. Researchers compared patients who were discharged from hospitals implementing different care transition strategies.

Researchers identified care transition strategies from a literature review and the qualitative study. The qualitative study included interviews and focus groups with patients and caregivers about their desired outcomes of care transitions.

In the retrospective study, researchers analyzed data from a care transition strategy survey of 370 acute care and critical access hospitals and readmission rates for 2,369,601 patients discharged from one of these hospitals between 2009 and 2014. Of these patients, 84% were white, 11% were black, and 5% were another or unknown races. Also, 57% were female.

In the prospective study, researchers analyzed care transition strategy implementation data from 42 hospitals and patient-reported outcomes data from 7,939 patients who received care at these hospitals. Of these patients, 79% were white, 10% were black, and 11% were other or unknown races. The average age was 72, and 53% were female. At least 51 days after leaving the hospital, patients rated their physical health, mental health, sleep quality, pain in the last week, and participation in daily activities. Researchers used general linear mixed model and logistic regression analyses to assess outcomes, adjusting for confounders.

Patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals helped design the study and provided feedback throughout.

Results

Qualitative study. Patients’ and caregivers’ desired outcomes included feeling cared for by providers, understanding who is responsible for the care plan, and feeling prepared to take care of themselves when leaving the hospital.

Retrospective study. Over the analysis period, hospitals implementing transition strategies that focused on cross-setting information exchange had greater reductions in 30-day readmission rates compared with hospitals implementing other strategies (relative reduction of 6.38%, p<0.0001).

Prospective study. Patients receiving a group of care strategies that focused on hospital-based trust, plain language, and care coordination had significant and positive associations for all patient-reported outcomes (ranging from p<0.01 to p<0.001). These strategies were associated with significant reductions in two healthcare utilization outcomes (30-day readmissions, 7-day ED visits (p<0.01) but they were associated with a greater risk of having at least one institutional day in a care facility during those 30 days (p=0.004).

Limitations

Because of the observational study design, researchers could not establish with certainty that the changes in study outcomes were a result of implementing different groups of care transition strategies.

Conclusions and Relevance

This study found associations between certain groups of care transition strategies and improvement in 30-day readmission rates and patient-reported outcomes.

Future Research Needs

Future research could further examine providers’ influence on patients’ perceptions of trust and plain language communication, shown to be important aspects of improved outcomes.

More on this Project  

• PCORI Stories

In Care Transitions, a Chance to Make or Break Patients' Recovery
Poorly executed transitions between healthcare settings—for example, from hospital to home or a nursing facility—can harm patients and lead to additional hospital visits. PCORI is funding projects to improve transitional care.

Peer-Review Summary

Peer review of PCORI-funded research helps make sure the report presents complete, balanced, and useful information about the research. It also assesses how the project addressed PCORI’s Methodology Standards. During peer review, experts read a draft report of the research and provide comments about the report. These experts may include a scientist focused on the research topic, a specialist in research methods, a patient or caregiver, and a healthcare professional. These reviewers cannot have conflicts of interest with the study.

The peer reviewers point out where the draft report may need revision. For example, they may suggest ways to improve descriptions of the conduct of the study or to clarify the connection between results and conclusions. Sometimes, awardees revise their draft reports twice or more to address all of the reviewers’ comments. 

Peer reviewers commented and the researchers made changes or provided responses. Those comments and responses included the following:

• The reviewers asked for clarification on the types of care transitions addressed in the study stating that the study appears to address care transitions broadly, but some parts of the report seem to focus more narrowly on transitions from hospital to home, for example. The researchers responded that the project focused on transitions from hospital to home or other sites but commented that they believe their findings likely apply to many types of patient care transitions.
• The reviewers commented that the use of odds ratios to depict the association between care transitions and several outcomes of interest could be misinterpreted, suggesting instead that the researchers report relative risk to better convey the relationship between transition strategies and certain outcomes. The researchers agreed with the reviewers, saying that when a particular outcome is common, it would be easier to interpret the results if they indicated relative risk of the outcome instead of absolute risk or odds. Therefore, the researchers changed the results tables in the report to display relative risk and moved the tables with odds ratios to an appendix.
• The reviewers asked about the possibility that the prospective study described in the report could have detected some spurious associations because of a large number of comparisons. The researchers reported that they used a more stringent probability threshold of 0.01 to detect statistical significance rather than the more conventional 0.05 by adjusting for comparing across five groups.
• The reviewers commented that the hospitals chosen for the study might not be entirely representative of hospitals throughout the nation, noting that for-profit hospitals were largely excluded from the study and rural hospitals were overrepresented. The researchers agreed that for-profit hospitals were underrepresented in their study, but stated that when they visited the hospitals in the study, they found that barriers and facilitators of care transitions were similar among different healthcare organizations, regardless of ownership. The researchers added that they purposely oversampled rural hospitals because such hospitals usually have fewer resources and face more challenges in transitional care.  Also, the researchers explained that they  could only obtain a representative number of rural patients by oversampling rural hospitals because these institutions tend to be smaller. The researchers did acknowledge the possibility that their sampling strategy, which focused on hospitals already participating in transitional care programs, could be biased. However, the researchers said they found that the characteristics of hospitals in the study were generally comparable to hospitals nationwide.
• The reviewers asked the researchers to describe how they reached thematic saturation in the qualitative work that was part of this project. The researchers explained that data analysis was ongoing during data collection for patient and caregiver focus groups, so they continued recruiting until they reached theoretical saturation. For provider focus groups and hospital site visits, the researchers did not attempt to reach thematic saturation. They did this for the former because the variability among providers, sites, and procedures would make saturation unfeasible and for the latter because thematic saturation was not a goal for the hospital site visits since this work was a pilot phase to prepare for a larger effort. However, the researchers believed that they did reach thematic saturation in these site visits based on the repetition of barriers and facilitators to transitional care programs identified by the site visit participants. In addition, the researchers explained that they validated the themes brought up in the qualitative substudies by discussing their findings with people at the sites visited, with research team members, and with patient stakeholders in the study.

Conflict of Interest Disclosures

View the COI disclosure form.

Project Details

Principal Investigator

Mark V. Williams, MD, MHM, FACP

Project Status

Completed; PCORI Public and Professional Abstracts Posted

Project Title

Project ACHIEVE (Achieving Patient-Centered Care and Optimized Health In Care Transitions by Evaluating the Value of Evidence)

Board Approval Date

September 2014

Project End Date

January 2021

Organization

University of Kentucky

Year Awarded

2014

State

Kentucky

Year Completed

2020

Project Type

Research Project

Health Conditions  

Multiple/Comorbid Chronic Conditions

Intervention Strategies

Care Coordination
Other Health Services Interventions
Training and Education Interventions

Populations

Individuals with Disabilities
Individuals with Multiple Chronic/co-morbid Conditions
Low Health Literacy/Numeracy
Low Income
Older Adults
Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Rural
Urban

Funding Announcement

The Effectiveness of Transitional Care

Project Budget

$15,549,012

Study Registration Information

HSRP20152336

NCT02354482