Date of Award
Spring 4-5-2021
Document Type
Scholarly Project
Degree Name
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)
Department
Nursing
First Advisor
Sue Ellen Bingham, Phd
Second Advisor
Michelle Sterling, DNP
Abstract
Practice Problem: Readmission occurs frequently among patients with stroke and because of this, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have imposed programs to reduce 30-day readmissions among hospitals. The health care system must respond with transition of care, especially during the period of recent stroke to improve patient outcomes.
PICOT: The PICOT question that guided this project was among patients with a recent diagnosis of stroke (P), what is the effect of a telehealth appointment with a nurse practitioner (NP) for post discharge follow-up (I), compared to a standard face-to-face clinic appointment (C), on 30-day readmissions rates (O), within two months (T)?
Evidence: Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death and has a readmission rate of 14%. Past studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of telehealth in treating patients outside of the hospital setting, which suggests the potential of telehealth on post-discharge follow-up care.
Intervention: To assess the impact of telehealth on 30-day readmission rates, stroke patients received a telehealth follow-up phone visit by a NP within ten days of being discharged to home.
Outcome: Data was collected from participant’s electronic health records (EHR) and discharge databases from October 13 to November 13, 2020. Among participants, the implementation of telehealth visits demonstrated a reduced readmission rate of 6.25% for stroke patients.
Conclusion: Telehealth is an effective, sustainable, and widely implementable strategy to provide post-discharge care to patients. This study outlined a framework to further analyze the effectiveness of telehealth visits in reducing 30-day readmission rates among stroke patients.
Recommended Citation
Hermosura, L. (2021). Reducing Stroke Readmission Through the Implementation of Telehealth. [Doctoral project, University of St Augustine for Health Sciences]. SOAR @ USA: Student Scholarly Projects Collection. https://doi.org/10.46409/sr.KKTK3774
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Scholarly project submitted to University of St. Augustine Health Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Nursing Practice.