Decreasing re-hospitalizations and emergency department visits in persons with recent spinal cord injuries using a specialized medical home.

Objective: To determine whether a specialized medical home can reduce re-hospitalizations and emergency department (ED) visits as compared to reports in the literature for persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) in the first year post-discharge from acute inpatient rehabilitation.Design: A three-year prospective cohort study.Setting: An academic free standing inpatient rehabilitation hospital (IRF), participating in the SCI Model Systems network, serving urban, rural and suburban settings in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States of America.Participants: 176 successive individuals with varying levels of SCI, inclusive of patients requiring mechanical ventilation, discharged from rehabilitation from 2/1/15 to 7/1/17, who met criteria and consented to participate.Interventions: Pre-discharge communication between the inpatient and outpatient staff was initiated, medication education by a pharmacist was added, 1 month of discharge medications was offered, and proactive phone calls to patients after discharge were instituted. In addition, patients were offered a 24/7 hotline to reach physician and nursing staff, and multidisciplinary outpatient follow-up was provided in conjunction with extensive proactive case management.Outcome measures: All-cause hospital readmission and ED visits.Results: Thirty percent of the individuals were readmitted within the first year after discharge from an IRF, and 24% were readmitted within the first year after onset. The incidence of readmission was 0.46 and 0.36 respectively. Forty-one percent had an ED visit.Conclusion: The results suggest that the medical home interventions decreased the rate and incidence of readmission and the rate of ED usage in the first year.