The Florida Hospital Association (FHA) has announced the formation of a “collaborative” to explore opportunities for reducing readmission rates in Florida’s hospitals. The Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), which is the first state agency in the country to publish potentially preventable readmission rates, has committed its support to the FHA initiative. The collaborative uses AHCA’s data and a new tool from 3M Health Information Systems. This effort will allow hospitals to examine readmissions that occurred regardless of whether the patients returned to their facility or another hospital. Having access to these newly developed tools will provide an understanding of why patients are being readmitted.

“The Florida Hospital Association supports efforts to increase quality and reduce costs of care for our patients. The collaborative will allow us to explore new ways of achieving our goals with data that have not been available until now,” said Kim Streit, FHA Vice President for Healthcare Research and Information. The focus of the collaborative is to explore why patients are readmitted, identify steps that could be taken to ensure that the patient doesn’t have to be readmitted to the hospital, and share strategies that are effective in reducing readmissions. Evaluating information on readmissions is important given the additional costs that are incurred when patients return to the hospital due to complications that may have been prevented with better follow-up care.

Based on data available from AHCA, 877,228 patients out of the 2.2 million adult hospital admissions were admitted for one of the 54 procedures or conditions examined by AHCA. Of these, 61,000 readmissions were identified as potentially preventable. Some of the work of the collaborative will be relevant to AHCA’s initiatives to create more educated healthcare consumers. The developer of the readmission methodology, 3M Health Information Systems used by AHCA, has also committed to assist FHA in the collaborative.

Another component of the collaborative will be to identify payment and policy issues that might be influencing readmissions. The data will be examined and shared with decision makers to develop future health policy. “One concern is that patients may not have adequate access to follow-up care after discharge and necessary medications or treatment to ensure the patients fully recover,” said Streit. “The collaborative will give us meaningful information to ensure patients are getting the postoperative care they need and avoid unnecessary readmissions,” said Streit. Patient compliance plays a key role in readmissions and hospitals will use the collaborative to discuss strategies to increase patient compliance with discharge instructions and follow-up care.

Florida hospitals, physicians, and health plans will be invited to participate in the collaborative, which kicks off later this summer and is expected to last 12 months.