Yale School of Public Health researchers say novel PeraTrend measure of patient condition is ‘strongly associated’ with risk of costly unplanned hospital readmissions
Major Study Finds PeraHealth’s Rothman Index a Powerful Tool to Reduce Readmissions
<0> PeraHealthJonathan Fullerton, 704-385-4675 </0>
PeraHealth Inc.’s Rothman Index can be a powerful tool to help hospitals identify patients who are at increased risk of readmission, according to a new peer-reviewed study by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health. The study found that the index’s novel and easily monitored composite measure of patient health, automatically extracted from Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), is “strongly associated” with the risk of unplanned readmission within 30 days of discharge.
“The association was strong and robust across diagnoses and specialties,” wrote Yale lead researcher Elizabeth Bradley, PhD. Patients identified as highest risk by the index were more than two and half times as likely to be readmitted than patients with lower-risk scores in the study of all adult or surgical discharges for a 996-bed teaching hospital during a five-month period in 2011. Incorporating the index into hospitals’ EMRs is “very manageable” and provides clinicians “a practical tool” to intervene specifically with higher-risk patients to try to avert unplanned readmissions, said the study by Dr. Bradley and four colleagues. The study is published in the September issue of , the official journal of the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association.
“This is very exciting because we feel strongly that the Rothman Index and PeraTrend, when strategically integrated into hospitals’ existing readmission prevention protocols, have enormous potential to reduce unnecessary readmissions,” said Stephanie Alexander, chief executive officer of PeraHealth. “Over the next several months, we will be working closely with select hospitals on how we can integrate PeraTrend and the scientific findings of Dr. Bradley’s study into existing discharge processes. Our goal is to prove that PeraTrend and the Rothman Index are powerful tools for identifying high-risk patients and reducing readmissions that are costing hospitals billions of dollars each year.”
The Rothman Index incorporates vital signs, lab tests, heart patterns and nurse assessments and is the algorithm that underlies PeraTrend, an easy-to-read representation of patient condition that pulls from EMRs without manual input and arms clinicians with real-time clinical decision support.
For more information about the study click .