Is Mental Illness a Risk Factor for Hospital Readmission?

People with mental illnesses (MI) receive suboptimal care for medical comorbidities and their high risk for readmission may be addressed by adequate medication management and follow-up care. We examined the association between MI, medication changes, and post-discharge outpatient visits with 30-day readmission in 40,048 Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction, heart failure or pneumonia. Beneficiaries with MI were more likely to be readmitted than those without MI (14 vs. 11%). Probability of readmission was 13 and 12% when medications were dropped or added, respectively, versus 11% when no change was made. Probability of readmission also increased with outpatient visits.

The Development and Implementation of an Electronic Health Record Tool for Monitoring Metabolic Syndrome Indices in Patients with Serious Mental Illness.

OBJECTIVES: 1. A quality performance improvement (QI) project to implement an electronic screening and monitoring tool to record components of the metabolic syndrome (e-MSD) during clinic visits by persons with serious mental illness (SMI). 2. To encourage psychiatrists to use this tool in their documentation. METHODS: Working with the information technology staff, five psychiatrists developed, tested, revised and embedded the e-MSD tool into the medication management document within the electronic health record. A continuing medical education program on metabolic syndrome was developed and released to psychiatrists and mental health clinicians. Psychiatrist offices at one clinic were equipped with weighing scales, sphygmomanometers, waist circumference tapes, and a QI project was initiated. RESULTS: At one month, 9 to 12% of the anthropometric measures (height, weight, body mass index, waist circumference, and blood pressure) were recorded in 974 unique patient encounters, and one year later the numbers moved upward from 15 to 41%. Toward the end of Year 1, a Patient Care Associate was hired to measure the anthropometric measures and, one year later, the documented rates increased to 75-80%. Laboratory recordings (glucose and lipids) remained ≤8% throughout the first year, but moved upward to 25% in Year 2. DISCUSSION: Notwithstanding significant administrative and technical support for this QI project, changing clinician practice to screen, monitor and document metabolic indices in persons with SMI in the ambulatory setting changed significantly after the hiring of a Patient Care Associate. Efforts to obtain laboratory measures in real time remain a challenge. Next steps include interventions to promote weight loss and smoking cessation in SMI patients, and effective communication with their primary care doctors.

The Development and Implementation of an Electronic Health Record Tool for Monitoring Metabolic Syndrome Indices in Patients with Serious Mental Illness.

Objectives1. A quality performance improvement (QI) project to implement an electronic screening and monitoring tool to record components of the metabolic syndrome (e-MSD) during clinic visits by persons with serious mental illness (SMI). 2. To encourage psychiatrists to use this tool in their documentation.MethodsWorking with the information technology staff; five psychiatrists developed, tested, revised and embedded the e-MSD tool into the medication management document within the electronic health record. A continuing medical education program on metabolic syndrome was developed, and released to psychiatrists and mental health clinicians. Psychiatrist offices at one clinic were equipped with weighing scales, sphygmomanometers, waist circumference tapes and a QI project was initiated.ResultsAt one month, 9 to 12% of the anthropometric measures (height, weight, body mass index, waist circumference, and blood pressure) were recorded in 974 unique patient encounters, and 1 year later the numbers moved upwards - 15 to 41%. Towards the end of Year 1, a patient care associate was hired to measure the anthropometric measures, and one year later, the documented rates increased to 75-80%. Laboratory recordings (glucose and lipids) remained ≤ 8% throughout the first year, but moved upwards to 25% in Year 2.DiscussionNotwithstanding significant administrative and technical support for this QI project, changing clinician practice to screen, monitor and document metabolic indices in persons with SMI in the ambulatory setting changed significantly after the hiring of a patient care associate. Efforts to obtain laboratory measures in real-time remain a challenge. Next steps include interventions to promote weight loss and smoking cessation in SMI patients, and effective communication with their primary care doctors.

Screening for obstructive sleep apnea among individuals with severe mental illness at a primary care clinic.

OBJECTIVE: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is linked to significant morbidity and mortality. OSA has received more attention recently, but the literature on OSA is scant in patients with severe mental illness (SMI). This project was undertaken to improve clinician knowledge and screening of OSA in persons with SMI. METHOD: One hundred SMI patients attending a primary care clinic were screened for symptoms and risk factors associated with OSA. The Epworth Sleepiness Scale was used to assess daytime sleepiness, and the STOP-Bang score was used to classify those at high risk for OSA. RESULTS: Sixty-nine percent of patients were found to be at high risk for OSA. Sixteen percent had a previously confirmed diagnosis of OSA. Most patients reported that OSA was never discussed with them, and 71% of those at high risk were willing to be referred for a sleep evaluation. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with SMI are at high risk for OSA, and screening for OSA appears to be inadequate. This screening can be done easily, seems acceptable to patients and may prove very beneficial as OSA diagnosis and treatment can improve mental and physical health outcomes in SMI patients.

Implementing interpersonal and social rhythm therapy for mood disorders across a continuum of care.

OBJECTIVE: Interpersonal and social rhythm therapy (IPSRT) is an evidence-based psychotherapy for mood disorders. The goal of this quality improvement initiative was to demonstrate feasibility of implementing IPSRT across the continuum of outpatient and inpatient care within an academic medical center. METHODS: A multidisciplinary work group was convened to implement IPSRT in outpatient (N=48), inpatient (N=602), and intensive outpatient (N=68) programs of an academic medical center. Quality improvement performance markers (including symptoms and group attendance rates) were collected. RESULTS: Institutional preference for group treatments required adaptation of IPSRT from an individual to group psychotherapy format. Iterative problem solving and protocol development resulted in models of group IPSRT appropriate for each level of care. Performance outcome markers were favorable, indicating feasibility of implementation. CONCLUSIONS: At a single, multisite, urban, academic medical center, IPSRT proved a feasible evidence-based psychotherapy for implementation across levels of care in routine practice.

Poor performance on cognitive tasks in depression: Doing too much or not enough?

Depressed people perform poorly on cognitive tasks. It is unclear whether these deficits are due to decreased devotion of task-related resources or to increased attention to non-task-related information. In the present study, we examined the degree to which depressed and healthy adults displayed pupillary motility that varied at the frequency of presented stimuli on a cognitive task, which we interpreted as task-related processing, and at other frequencies, which we interpreted as reflecting intrinsic processing. Depressed participants made more consecutive errors than did controls. More pupillary motility at other frequencies was associated with poorer performance, whereas more pupillary motility at the frequency of presented stimuli was associated with better performance. Depressed participants had more pupillary motility at other frequencies, which partially mediated observed deficits in cognitive performance. These findings support the hypothesis that allocating cognitive resources to intrinsic processing contributes to observed cognitive deficits in depression.

Best practices: an intervention to promote evidence-based prescribing at a large psychiatric hospital.

An intervention to affect prescribing behavior was implemented at a large psychiatric hospital. Articles providing support for appropriate dosing of quetiapine were distributed to physicians, and peer discussions about prescribing practices were held. From April 2005 through December 2006, low-dose quetiapine prescriptions (

When is antipsychotic polypharmacy supported by research evidence? Implications for QI.

BACKGROUND: Concurrent use of multiple standing antipsychotics (antipsychotic polypharmacy) is increasingly common among both inpatients and outpatients. Although this has often been cited as a potential quality-of-care problem, reviews of research evidence on antipsychotic polypharmacy have not distinguished between appropriate versus inappropriate use. METHODS: A MEDLINE search from 1966 to December 2007 was completed to identify studies comparing changes in symptoms, functioning, and/or side effects between patients treated with multiple antipsychotics and patients treated with a single antipsychotic. The studies were reviewed in two groups on the basis of whether prescribing was concordant with guideline recommendations for multiple-antipsychotic use. RESULTS: A review of the literature, including three randomized controlled trials, found no support for the use of antipsychotic polypharmacy in patients without an established history of treatment resistance to multiple trials of monotherapy. In patients with a history of treatment resistance to multiple monotherapy trials, limited data support antipsychotic polypharmacy, but positive outcomes were primarily found in studies of clozapine augmented with a second-generation antipsychotic. DISCUSSION: Research evidence is consistent with the goal of avoiding antipsychotic polypharmacy in patients who lack guideline-recommended indications for its use. The Joint Commission is implementing a core measure set for Hospital-Based Inpatient Psychiatric Services. Two of the measures address antipsychotic polypharmacy. The first measure assesses the overall rate. The second measure determines whether clinically appropriate justification has been documented supporting the use of more than one antipsychotic medication.

Of treatment systems and depression: an overview of quality-improvement opportunities in hospital-based psychiatric care.

A clinical perspective on depression tends to focus on therapy and on medications or psychological interventions that may be helpful to individual patients. A broader view on the treatment enterprise, however, suggests that there are other dimensions to treatment and that opportunities for improving the quality of care and patient outcomes are not limited to innovation in therapeutics. This article examines several of the nonclinical facets of inpatient care, using the frame of a conceptual pyramid to explore the relationships between therapy and its professional, organizational, care-management, and economic concomitants. By drawing on a conceptual pyramid that elucidates several nonclinical dimensions of inpatient treatment for depression, we describe the potential for corresponding quality improvement activities among psychiatric providers. The pyramid suggests that there are multiple opportunities for future interventions to promote quality in inpatient psychiatric care, that those opportunities are considerably more varied than a purely clinical perspective might recognize, and that interventions in nonclinical aspects of the treatment system have the potential to cascade "downward" to affect clinical outcomes over time.

Short-term outcome of psychiatric inpatients with anorexia nervosa in the current care environment.

OBJECTIVE: The current study describes the short-term outcome of 61 inpatients with anorexia nervosa (AN), utilizing a standardized protocol that could be completed by most patients within the typical length of stay (LOS) in an academic medical center in our geographic area. METHOD: Patients were placed on disorder-specific and medication clinical pathways and completed questionnaires at admission and discharge. Diagnostic, historical, demographic, and treatment-related information was obtained. RESULTS: Treatment was sufficient to resolve acute medical problems, initiate refeeding, and interrupt compensatory behaviors, but continued intensive treatment will be critical to full recovery. Patients were discharged at an average of 85% of ideal body weight (IBW). Twenty patients were discharged against medical advice (AMA). Clinical and demographic variables poorly predicted AMA status. DISCUSSION: Attainable inpatient treatment goals in our care environment appear to be > or = 80% IBW at discharge, resolution of acute medical problems, and interruption of compensatory behaviors. Future research should examine whether shorter LOS increases readmission rates or long-term costs.