Hospital Readmission Rates for Patients Receiving In-Person vs. Telemedicine Discharge Follow-Up Care

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Digital Health
• Quality Improvement

Background:

• Unplanned readmissions are a significant concern, often linked to fragmented post-discharge care.
• Telemedicine utilization is rising, but its impact on care quality, particularly transitions of care, requires rigorous evaluation.
• Standardized metrics are crucial for objectively comparing care quality across different delivery models.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the quality performance of telemedicine versus in-office care for Transitions of Care Management (TCM).
• To assess readmission rates as a key indicator of TCM effectiveness.
• To evaluate the impact of telemedicine on healthcare system performance metrics.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Epic SlicerDicer for data extraction on encounter types (telemedicine video visits vs. in-person).
• Employed Chi-squared tests to compare readmission rates between the two cohorts.
• Ensured demographic comparability between the office and telemedicine patient groups.

Main Results:

• Analyzed 13,891 patients; 12,846 in the office cohort and 1,048 in the telemedicine cohort.
• Office readmission rate was 11.9% (1,533/12,846); telemedicine rate was 12.1% (126/1,045).
• No statistically significant difference in readmission rates was observed (P-values > 0.05).

Conclusions:

• Telemedicine provides comparable quality to in-office visits for Transitions of Care Management.
• Telemedicine effectively supports quality performance, cost reduction, and improved access.
• Findings indicate telemedicine does not negatively impact Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) performance.