A quality improvement approach to reducing hospital readmissions in patients with cancer and heart failure

The management of patients with cancer and concurrent heart failure (HF) is challenging. The increased complexity of treatment and the occurrence of multiple overlapping symptoms may lead to frequent hospital admissions, which may result in cancer treatment delays, a diminished quality of life, and an increased financial burden for the patient's family. To provide holistic care to oncology patients with HF, we implemented the Heart Success Program (HSP), a patient-centered, interprofessional collaborative practice, which decreased the 30-day hospital readmission rate for HF diagnosis from 40 to 27%. However, this rate remains higher than that reported for Medicare beneficiaries.

To identify the factors contributing to frequent readmissions, the HSP committee participated in the institution's Clinical Safety and Effectiveness and utilize quality improvement methodologies and tools to decrease hospital readmission for HF.

The DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) method was used to guide this quality improvement. Areas considered as having high impact and requiring low effort to address were patient education barriers, lack of documentation clarity, and care provider knowledge gaps about the HSP. We implemented workflow changes, improved clarity with documentation of HF diagnosis, and increase provider knowledge about the HSP.

After 6 months of implementing quality improvement techniques, the 30-day hospital readmission rate for HF patients fell by 23.43% (from 31.7% for the baseline period to 8.27%), exceeding the target project goal of 10%. Our quality improvement method may also be effective in improving the management of patients with cancer and other comorbid conditions.