Increasing Home Healthcare Referrals and Access to Community Resources in Response to High Emergency Department...

The goal of this interprofessional quality initiative project was to decrease emergency department (ED) visits for nonemergency health problems by referring superutilizers to home healthcare or connecting them with existing community resources. An interprofessional team of students from schools of nursing, public health, and occupational therapy collaborated on a community assessment, investigated and gathered community resources, and interviewed key stakeholders at a rural ED to identify the root causes of high utilization. Using these data, we designed an algorithm for ED clinicians that provided an organized community resource collection and electronic resources for ED staff. We focused on encouraging an increase in the evaluation of patients for eligibility to receive home healthcare services.