Publication date: Oct 28, 2024
(1) Background: The evidence to support transitional care in reducing acute hospital utilization is variable. Despite changes in the healthcare landscape with a rapidly aging population, there is a lack of local and regional studies to evaluate the effectiveness of transitional home care programs. This study investigates whether a transitional home care program delivered by an acute tertiary hospital can reduce acute hospital utilization. (2) Methods: A pre-post design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. A total of 2004 enrolments from 1679 unique patients that fulfilled the criteria of enrolment were included. The transitional care program is delivered through telephone follow-up and home visits. The Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test was used to assess the differences between the three periods of baseline, enrolment, and post-enrolment. (3) Results: All 2004 enrolments were analyzed. The re-attendances at the emergency department reduced significantly by 31. 2% and 71. 9% during enrolment and post-enrolment (p < 0. 001), respectively. Similarly, patients had a 38. 7% and 76. 2% reduction in hospital admissions during enrolment and post-enrolment (p < 0. 001), respectively. For patients who were admitted, there was no significant difference in the length of stay between these groups (p = 0. 23). (4) Conclusions: The transitional home care program can effectively reduce emergency department re-attendances and inpatient admissions. Not only was the total number of emergency department re-attendances reduced significantly, but the number of frequent re-attendances also dropped significantly. The outcomes were consistent during COVID-19 and post-pandemic phases. These findings can be used as a guide in program planning and future scalability.
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Concepts | Keywords |
---|---|
Home | care continuity |
Inpatient | health program |
Pandemic | home care |
Singapore | home visit |
hospital admission | |
multimorbidity | |
transitional care |
Semantics
Type | Source | Name |
---|---|---|
disease | MESH | emergency |
disease | MESH | COVID-19 |
drug | DRUGBANK | Coenzyme M |
disease | IDO | healthcare facility |
disease | IDO | host |
disease | MESH | chronic conditions |
drug | DRUGBANK | Etoperidone |
disease | IDO | process |
disease | MESH | home environments |
disease | IDO | intervention |
disease | IDO | symptom |
drug | DRUGBANK | Pentaerythritol tetranitrate |
disease | MESH | frailty |
disease | MESH | urinary tract infection |
disease | MESH | pneumonia |
disease | MESH | Chest pain |
disease | MESH | Congestive heart failure |
disease | MESH | Dyspnea |
drug | DRUGBANK | Dextromethorphan |
drug | DRUGBANK | Trestolone |
drug | DRUGBANK | Methionine |
disease | MESH | morbidities |
drug | DRUGBANK | Guanosine |
disease | MESH | multiple chronic conditions |
disease | MESH | diabetes mellitus |
disease | IDO | quality |