PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Brian Carlin
AU  - Kim Wiles
AU  - Dan Easley
TI  - Transition of care and rehospitalization rates for patients who require home oxygen therapy following hospitalization
DP  - 2012 Sep 01
TA  - European Respiratory Journal
PG  - P617
VI  - 40
IP  - Suppl 56
4099  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P617.short
4100  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P617.full
SO  - Eur Respir J2012 Sep 01; 40
AB  - Objective: To evaluate the effects over the past year of a home care based, respiratory therapist centered transition of care program for patients who require home oxygen therapy following hospital admission for an exacerbation.Method: The Discharge, Assessment and Summary @ Home (D.A.S.H., Klingensmith HealthCare) program was implemented for patients who require supplemental oxygen use following hospital admission for the last year. This data is a summary of the last year of the program. The program consists of face-to-face visits by a respiratory therapist with the patient in the home environment on days 2, 7, and 30 following hospital discharge. Education, behavior modification, skills training, oxygen titration during performance of activities of daily living, clinical assessment, and adherence data collection are key components of the program. Patients who were discharged from the hospital who required supplemental oxygen were enrolled into the program.Results: 555 patients from 23 different hospitals in the Western Pennsylvania area were enrolled into the program from March 2010 through February 2012. The primary discharge diagnosis was: COPD 69%; CHF 14%; hypoxemia 6%; pneumonia 4%; and other 7%. The overall readmission rate for the entire group was 5%. The 30 day readmission rate for those with COPD was 3% and for those with CHF was 3%.Conclusions: With the use of this novel respiratory therapist based transition of care program, the 30 day rehospitalization rate (5%) for those patients who required supplemental oxygen on discharge was significantly lower than the historically observed rates (25%) in the Western Pennsylvania area.