Mobile messaging can cut hospital readmissions
A 10-month Philadelphia hospital text message and email reminder pilot scheme cut its 30-day readmission rates among chronic heart failure patients by 10%.
The pilot, which involved 368 congestive heart failure patients and a total of 784 discharges, found that patients were not only more likely to arrange and attend their follow-up appointment if prompted by a text message, phone call or email reminder, they were also less likely to be readmitted to hospital.
According to mobihealthnews, in presenting their findings at HIMSS 2015 in Chicago, Hahnemann Hospital's Dr. Thompson Boyd and Richard Imbimbo said that mobile technology had a clear role to play in healthcare, particularly as a tool for engagement and revealed that readmission rates actually fell to 16% -- a 40% improvement over the hospital's baseline figure of 26.7%.
