The ultimate goal of a hospital is to empower its patients to live healthy lives at home. Unfortunately, the move to outpatient care can be difficult— particularly after a major surgery or traumatic health event. The way a person makes the transition from in-patient to out-patient care can have a big impact on their entire recovery.

In the age of telehealth technology, it is now easier than ever to monitor the patient’s health, answer their questions, and simply stay in touch. In this article, we take a sweeping look at how to ease people into outpatient care, with a special emphasis on how telehealth technology is changing things.

Situation

Study after study has shown the transition from in-patient to out-patient care to be both highly complex and fraught with the potential for failure. The more complicated or medically imperiled the patient is, the greater the risk of failure becomes.

This holds true for all patients but is uniquely prevalent in the case of patients who are not well-equipped to akee care of themselves.

Consider the experience of a child who has spent several weeks in the hospital after a major surgery. Day and night they have been monitored and treated by a team of nurses. There have been rules that they have had to follow— particularly at the incision site. Doctors have warned that if they use the appendage where the cut was made too much it could result in blood clots and other major health problems.

In the hospital, it was easy to lay low and avoid re-injury. For one thing, there was nothing to do. For another, there was always a medical professional around to monitor the situation. But now? There are plenty of tempting play opportunities at home. The child wants to follow the doctor’s orders, but at the same time, they never fully understood them, and there are so many fun things to do….

So, what happens next? Well, it’s a case-by-case situation, but the odds don’t always favor the child.  In fact, a recent study revealed a large number of barriers that keep medically complex patients from succeeding once released from the hospital. These hurdles included:

• Inability to access necessary medications. Usually for a financial or logistical reason (i.e. no access to a car).
• No home health supplies.
• A lack of understanding of how to care for themselves.

The normal re-admission rate is around 20%. Not only is this bad for the patient, delaying their recovery and resulting in potentially thousands of dollars in medical bills, but it is also bad for the healthcare system.

However, the same study that revealed all of these hurdles to long-term health success also revealed that telehealth intervention can lower re-admission rates by as much as 5%. Below, we highlight ways to help patients transition fully into life outside of the hospital.

Provide Comprehensive Information on How the Patient Can Care for Themself

Patients commonly complain that doctors and nurses only tell you what you ask them. In other words, if you want to receive medical insights, you need to ask lots of questions. The study from earlier revealed that nearly 60% of people receiving outpatient care reported having follow-up questions for their doctors.

While there is nothing wrong with needing to ask questions after being released into outpatient care, it’s better to make sure that all of the basics are covered before the patient leaves the hospital. Medically complex patients should be thoroughly prepped for life in outpatient care.

A lengthy conversation is great, but it also helps to leave them with resources, be they a simple transcript of what was discussed, or literature from the hospital that covers the specifics of how to care for themselves.

Assess Their Resources

It’s wrong to assume that every patient who leaves the hospital is going home to the same conditions. Going back to work at a fast food restaurant two days after being discharged is very different from going home to two weeks of bed rest.

Some patients also won’t have the physical or financial resources to take good care of themselves. If they don’t have access to a car, they may not have any way of getting that prescription you just wrote for them. And if they are financially restrained or uninsured, they may not have any way of getting the home medical supplies that are required for their recovery.

Unfortunately, there isn’t always much that hospitals can do to help patients with limited home resources. If there are programs available to help ease the burden of a difficult home recovery, of course, they should be applied.

If not, it at least helps to know what the patient is going home to so that you can modify their recovery plan, and simply know what to look out for in follow-up appointments.

Either way, it’s important to assess the patient’s resources as they are being processed out of the hospital. You should also assess their ability to participate in telehealth services, as that will play heavily into our final recommendation.

Follow Up

This, of course, is where telehealth enters the equation. All of those potential problem areas, lack of resources, lack of knowledge, etc. can be addressed during follow-up appointments. Telehealth appointments are becoming increasingly less limited thanks to wearable health technology that allows patients to constantly take their vitals.

With a combination of communication technology and monitoring resources, it is now very possible to get a robust idea of how the patient is doing at home.

During follow-up appointments, it is important to not only assess their condition but also their mindset. Find out if they have questions or concerns. Ask about what barriers to success they are encountering. These questions will help identify future problems. They will also just make the patient feel well-cared for.

Earlier we mentioned that telehealth can reduce re-hospitalization by five percent, but there is no reason to think that that is the ceiling for this technology’s potential. As telehealth tech continues to improve and hospitals and patients get more used to remote follow-ups, there could be significant room to further improve outpatient outcomes.