To assess the impact of a community pharmacist-delivered care transition intervention on 30-day hospital readmissions.
A single private 263-bed hospital in the Midwest United States and 12 partnering community pharmacies, 1 serving as primary pharmacy.
Adult general medicine inpatients were evaluated by nursing staff with the use of a worksheet based on the Better Outcomes by Optimizing Safe Transitions (BOOST) readmission risk toolkit. The highest-risk patients were enrolled in a 3-contact intervention. First, a pharmacist from the primary community pharmacy delivered an in-room work-up. The pharmacist focused on medication education, problem identification, and verifying medication access following discharge. A pharmacist visited the hospital for approximately 4 hours most weekdays, during which the pharmacist saw 3-4 patients. A community pharmacist telephoned these patients 8 and 25 days after discharge.
The intervention was provided to 555 patients who had a mean readmission risk worksheet score of 1.90 (SD 1.13) and not provided to 430 patients with lower readmission risk worksheet scores, which averaged 0.68 (SD 0.86; P < 0.001). Thirty-day readmissions to the study hospital were lower for intervention patients (8.1%) versus comparison patients (21.4%; P < 0.001). Thirty-day readmissions to any hospital were calculated for a subsample of 129 intervention patients and 103 comparison patients with Medicare Fee for Service insurance for which claims were available, but the difference (10.9% and 15.5%, respectively) did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.328).
A community pharmacy was successful in partnering with a hospital and other community pharmacies to lead a care transitions intervention associated with reduced 30-day same-hospital readmissions.
A community pharmacist-led intervention delivered to higher-risk patients showed a significant decrease in readmission rate to the same hospital compared with lower-risk patients hospitalized in the same unit but not receiving the intervention. This supports the community pharmacists' role in care transitions.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
13
17%
Nursing and Health Professions
8
10%
Medicine and Dentistry
7
9%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences
2
3%
Psychology
2
3%
Other
2
3%
Unknown
43
56%
Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 September 2018.
All research outputs
#9,462,732
of 34,411,289 outputs
Outputs from Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association
#782
of 2,205 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#109,836
of 374,121 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association
#6
of 22 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,411,289 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 72nd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,205 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.0. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 64% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 22 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 72% of its contemporaries.
