The report has generated a good deal of press interest, so I decided to delve a bit deeper in this interview with Anne Weiss, Quality/Equality Health Care Team Director and Senior Program Officer at RWJF.
In this podcast we discuss:
- The significance of the regional variation in readmissions, and whether the variation reflects true best and worst practices to emulate or avoid, or whether other factors are at play.
- Reasons behind the lack of recent progress in reducing readmissions.
- What influence patients and caregivers have on whether a specific patient will need to be readmitted once discharged.
- Whether patients can do anything ahead of time –like picking a certain type of primary care practice– to avoid being readmitted if they are ever hospitalized.
- Opportunities for entrepreneurs to address the readmissions challenge –in the short term and long term.