CMS Releases Readmission Prevention Guide for Diverse Medicare Beneficiaries.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of Minority Health (OMH) recently released a guide for hospital leaders and stakeholders focused on quality, safety, and care design. The Affordable Care Act established the OMH to help eliminate health disparities and improve the health of all minority populations. Currently, racial and ethnic minorities have a greater likelihood of readmission within thirty days of a hospital admission for heart failure, heart attack, pneumonia, and other chronic conditions. Social, cultural, and linguistic barriers often contribute to these higher readmission rates. OMH collaborated with prominent healthcare research centers to publish the Readmission Prevention Guide, which identifies root causes and solutions for preventing avoidable readmissions.
The Readmission Prevention Guide contains action-oriented strategies and provides an overview of the key issues pertaining to readmissions for diverse Medicare beneficiaries. Further, the Readmission Prevention Guide includes three case studies that present initiatives designed to reduce readmissions in diverse populations and key recommendations for hospital leaders. OMH stresses the importance of developing strategies to prevent readmissions among vulnerable minority populations to achieve value in healthcare going forward.
The CMS press release is available at:
The OMH Readmission Prevention Guide is available at:
https://www.cms.gov/About-CMS/Agency-Information/OMH/Downloads/OMH_Readmissions_Guide.pdf.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “CMS Releases Guide to Preventing Readmissions among Racially and Ethnically Diverse Medicare Beneficiaries.” Press Release. 26 Jan. 2016.