Lelia B. Helms

Unplanned hospital readmissions: a home care perspective.

BACKGROUND The extensive literature concerning hospital readmissions is grounded in a medical or hospital perspective, and fails to address hospital readmissions during home care. OBJECTIVES To describe clients who have unplanned returns to an inpatient setting during the first 100 days of home care service delivery. METHOD Using the Hospital Readmission Inventory (HRI), an audit tool with previously established validity and reliability, 916 medical records for clients from 11 midwestern home care agencies were reviewed retrospectively. RESULTS Typically, clients were referred for their first home care admission after a 9-day hospital length of stay for a cardiovascular, respiratory, or neoplastic disorder. After an average 18-day length home care stay, clients were readmitted to the hospital, usually due to the development of a new problem, or due to deterioration in health status related to the primary or to a secondary medical diagnosis. Significant respiratory, cardiovascular or GI symptoms were generally present at hospital readmission. Typically, readmitted clients were 75 year old married females, who had been able to care for themselves at home. At hospital readmission, home care nurses judged these clients to be moderately ill, and likely in need of acute care. CONCLUSIONS Chronic illness appears to be the best indicator for hospital readmission. The crucial time period for hospital readmission during home care is the first 2-3 weeks following hospital discharge. Intensive study of home care service arrangements utilized by readmitted patients, as well as agency variations, are needed. Study findings concerning patients readmitted from home care point to similarities with rehospitalized patients generally. Findings may assist home care clinicians in targeting high risk patients who could benefit from interventions aimed at minimizing unplanned returns to the hospital.

Home care referral after emergency department discharge

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to assess the need for home health care referral screening for elderly patients after ED discharge. The specific research question addressed was: Is there a need for home care referral screenings for elderly patients discharged from the emergency department? DESIGN A nonexperimental, retrospective, descriptive design was used in this project. METHODS A convenience sample of 194 closed medical records was obtained from a Midwestern hospital emergency department. The medical records were from patients 65 years of age and older who had visited the emergency department during a 3-month period. One chart audit tool was completed for each medical record. RESULTS Eighty-eight (45.4%) of the 194 patients in the study could have benefited from a home care referral. CONCLUSION Elderly patients frequently access the health care delivery system through the emergency department, but little is known about the outcomes of such usage, particularly in the context of continuity of care. If home care referral screenings of elderly ED patients are performed and appropriate referrals are made before ED discharge, a seamless delivery system of health care is provided. A home care visit resulting from a referral may be all that is needed for the maintenance of a patients condition. To improve the quality and continuity of patient care, home care screening should be integrated into the routine discharge ED activities.

Forty Years of Litigation Involving Medical Students and Their Education: I. General Educational Issues.

An analysis of reported state and federal adjudication from 1950 through 1989 was undertaken to identify trends in litigation involving medical students and undergraduate medical education. Of the 110 decisions cited, 51 (46%) involved disputes over general educational issues. A majority of the decisions affecting general education involved admissions and dismissal processes. Recently courts have begun scrutinizing readmission, course repetition, and cheating. Medical schools have accommodated to judicial scrutiny of general educational issues and have prevailed more often than claimants in litigation during this period, but litigation has not decreased as precedent and procedure have become clearer. Instead, litigation has continued unabated in alternative areas and at different levels of the educational process.

Responsibilities of Nursing Education: The Lessons of Russell v Salve Regina.

In August 1985 Sharon Russell was dismissed from Salve Regina College just before her senior year of nursing education. The reasons given for her dismissal focused on Russells obesity and her inability to lose weight. The issues raised by this case pose important questions that nursing programs and nurse educators must address. This article explores the questions raised by Russell: (1) What constitutes substantial compliance with both academic and nonacademic performance criteria in a contract between a student and an educational institution? (2) What duties to preserve the privacy interests of students may be imposed on programs and educators? Ms Russells case has been settled. She established that she had met the terms of the contract and substantially complied with the academic and nonacademic criteria of the nursing curriculum. She was awarded monetary damages for the colleges breach of contract in nonperformance of an agreement to educate. She did not prevail in her claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress or invasion of privacy. She did, however, put nursing education programs on notice that colleges and universities are not immune from these contractual challenges and must demonstrate respect and consideration for students personal concerns.

A Rural Perspective on Home Care Communication about Elderly Patients after Hospital Discharge

Little is known about home health agencies (HHA) and their integration in the continuum of care in rural areas. The aims of this study are to describe the amount and type of patient-related data transferred by discharging hospitals to rural HHAs and to explore the influence of selected organizational factors on that communication process using a previously tested model of interorganizational communication. In this study, 446 closed-case, elderly patient records at three rural HHAs were reviewed using the Referral Data Inventory. Rural HHAs receive about half of the literature-recommended referral data, characterized primarily by background data, some medical data, and almost no psychosocial or nursing-care data. Referrals transmitted by telephone and written data were superior to referrals transferred by a telephone call only. Hospital-affiliated HHAs received significantly greater amounts and richer types of referral data than did free-standing HHAs. Findings suggest that cost-saving measures in the referral process need investigation.

Doin' politics: linking policy and politics in nursing.

Policies affecting nursing are set within the larger environment of the health policy sector. That sector is characterized by increasing size, complexity, and goal displacement. All three characteristics have served to expand the resource base for this sector despite fiscal constraints on such growth. The environment of policy making shapes both the substance of policy change and the strategies for political adoption. Without understanding the dynamics of the policy environment, efforts by nursing leaders to enhance their growing political sophistication and to articulate nursing interests with maximum effectiveness will be compromised.

Lessons in Leveraging Implementation: Rulemaking, Growth Models, and Policy Dynamics Under NCLB

Through a case study that highlights the role of rulemaking in the evolution of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), this article provides strategies for educators who seek both to influence policy outcomes and to understand the dynamics of policymaking. This study examines the regulatory processes for NCLB, specifically related to the adoption of growth models, at both the federal and state levels, augmenting the slim body of literature on rulemaking in educational policy. It focuses on rulemaking processes as they define and redirect the substance of policy, create ongoing opportunities for stakeholder participation, and influence, and tailor policies to the state and local settings in which delivery occurs. This article describes policy as cumulative, increasingly complex and multileveled. It recommends that stakeholders monitor and target federal and state rulemaking venues so as to influence and adapt legislative mandates to the specific contexts and demands of practice.

Affirmative Action in Medical Education: A Legal Perspective.

The use of affirmative action programs as part of the effort to increase the presence of minorities in medical education and the physician workforce has come under greater legal scrutiny. The authors describe the history of the legal theory behind affirmative action, giving examples from the evolving case law and from Department of Education guidelines. They identify legal pitfalls in the areas of admission and financial aid, including the categorization of students by race, racially disproportionate financial aid awards after accounting for need, racially disproportionate amounts of scholarships as opposed to loans, and, for public medical schools, differential treatment of out-of-state students based on race. Medical schools should be aware of this legal framework so that they can construct affirmative action programs that comply with the law while maintaining momentum toward diversification.

Forty years of litigation involving medical students and their education: II. Issues of finance.

An analysis of reported state and federal adjudication from 1950 through 1989 was undertaken to identify trends in litigation involving medical students and undergraduate medical education. Of the 110 cited judicial decisions during that time, 59 (54%) involved disputes over financing medical education; 43 (73%) were litigated since 1985. This dramatic increase arises primarily from challenges to National Health Service Corps obligations and from attempts to discharge or reorganize debt under the Bankruptcy Code. Medical school graduates enjoyed very little success in these cases. Analysis of court decisions points to a need for informed counseling for medical students, particularly as to the consequences of timing in default on service obligations and of incurring loans under the Health Education Assistance Loan (HEAL) program as opposed to other loan sources. The growing educational debt of todays medical students foreshadows continued litigation in this area.

Extended care referral after hospital discharge

The purpose of this study was to describe the influence of selected organizational and medical factors on communication between hospitals and extended care facilities (ECF) in the referral of elderly clients following discharge from acute care. Using a tool with previously established reliability and validity, 455 closed records of referral were purposively selected and reviewed for the amount and type of information an ECF received upon referral, as well as selected organizational and medical factors. Hospitals transferred approximately three-fourths of the patient care data recommended in the literature. Information contained in an ECF referral consisted primarily of background and medical data, with some nursing care data and limited psychosocial data. More information-rich referrals were generated by very large hospitals and by specialty care units. Similarly, proprietary ECFs received more patient care data than their not-for-profit counterparts. Research concerning patient care communication between provider organizations across the health care delivery system may assist nurses in developing better patient care information-management systems.