Timeliness of outpatient follow-up: an evidence-based approach for planning after hospital discharge.

PURPOSE: Timely outpatient follow-up has been promoted as a key strategy to reduce hospital readmissions, though one-half of patients readmitted within 30 days of hospital discharge do not have follow-up before the readmission. Guidance is needed to identify the optimal timing of hospital follow-up for patients with conditions of varying complexity. METHODS: Using North Carolina Medicaid claims data for hospital-discharged patients from April 2012 through March 2013, we constructed variables indicating whether patients received follow-up visits within successive intervals and whether these patients were readmitted within 30 days. We constructed 7 clinical risk strata based on 3M Clinical Risk Groups (CRGs) and determined expected readmission rates within each CRG. We applied survival modeling to identify groups that appear to benefit from outpatient follow-up within 3, 7, 14, 21, and 30 days after discharge. RESULTS: The final study sample included 44,473 Medicaid recipients with 65,085 qualifying discharges. The benefit of early follow-up varied according to baseline readmission risk. For example, follow-up within 14 days after discharge was associated with 1.5%-point reduction in readmissions in the lowest risk strata (P <.001) and a 19.1%-point reduction in the highest risk strata (P <.001). Follow-up within 7 days was associated with meaningful reductions in readmission risk for patients with multiple chronic conditions and a greater than 20% baseline risk of readmission, a group that represented 24% of discharged patients. CONCLUSIONS: Most patients do not meaningfully benefit from early outpatient follow-up. Transitional care resources would be best allocated toward ensuring that highest risk patients receive follow-up within 7 days.

Hospitalized patients with 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) virus infection in the United States--September-October 2009.

Given the potential worsening clinical severity of 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) virus (pH1N1) infection from spring to fall 2009, we conducted a clinical case series among patients hospitalized with pH1N1 infection from September through October 2009. A case patient was defined as a hospitalized person who had test results positive for pH1N1 virus by real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction. Among 255 hospitalized patients, 34% were admitted to an intensive care unit and 8% died. Thirty-four percent of patients were children <18 years of age, 8% were adults ≥ 65 years of age, and 67% had an underlying medical condition. Chest radiographs obtained at hospital admission that had findings that were consistent with pneumonia were noted in 103 (46%) of 255 patients. Among 255 hospitalized patients, 208 (82%) received neuraminidase inhibitors, but only 47% had treatment started ≤ 2 days after illness onset. Overall, characteristics of hospitalized patients with pH1N1 infection in fall 2009 were similar to characteristics of patients hospitalized with pH1N1 infection in spring 2009, which suggests that clinical severity did not change substantially over this period.