Visiting Nurse Association risk reduction project

Ongoing monitoring of frail elders may be an effective way to reduce rehospitalization rates. The VNA Risk Reduction Project was a demonstration program designed to test this hypothesis. Two hundred and sixty one previously hospitalized patients were randomly assigned to two treatment groups. The nursing group received monthly monitoring visits while the telephone group received calls by volunteers approximately twice per month. The comparison between the two service groups shows that the nursing group visited at least twice had fewer hospitalizations and the same length of stay as the telephone group. The findings suggest that ongoing monitoring can reduce costs and improve the quality of care.