ANN ARBOR -- The University of Michigan Health System and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan are backing an effort to try to reduce the revolving door that sees many hospital patients readmitted after discharge.
They joined the Society of Hospital Medicine on Thursday to announce a statewide project aimed at reducing "preventable readmissions to the hospital and emergency room visits." The groups say Project Boost will soon select 15 hospitals to implement the program and say staff training will start in May.
They say an April 2009 New England Journal of Medicine article found that one-fifth of hospitalized patients are readmitted within a month of discharge. They say unplanned readmissions cost Medicare alone $17.4 billion a year. The groups say other Project Boost efforts in Atlanta, Philadelphia and St. Louis have succeeded in cutting such repeat admissions.
