Analytics help enable hospitalists to prevent readmissions

MedAptus product allows use of real-time data to manage risk, says Eugene Schneider.


Hospitalists who support patients through their stay in a facility now can get assistance in planning their discharge, with the hope that advanced planning will help avoid preventable readmissions.

MedAptus hopes to give hospitalists additional technology support through real-time analytics in its Hospitalist Risk Series, available through the vendor’s Professional Charge Capture (Pro) suite. The Boston-based vendor says the new offering extends the suite’s ability to compute data from admission and discharge feeds, and patients’ diagnosis history, thus leveraging patient history and admission activity to identify those at greatest risk for readmissions.



The company estimates that as many as 50,000 clinicians now are serving as hospitalists for patients. Because of their heavy involvement in directing inpatient care, many experts believe they can impact key metrics around hospitalizations that can reduce readmissions.

Hospitals can lose up to 3 percent of their Medicare payments under the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, which penalizes based on select 30-day patient readmissions. In 2014, nearly 18% of Medicare patients were admitted within a month of discharge at a cost of $26 billion.

Also See: How telehealth can enable declines in readmission rates

Readmissions can be the product of a number of factors, many of which are outside the control of a hospitalist—lack of follow-up with the patient's primary care physician, a challenging home environment, poor medication adherence, and other socio-demographic reasons. Hospitalists using MedAptus to document care for reimbursement can take behavior data from within Pro and place it in front of providers to inform medical decision making around a patient's treatment and ultimately, discharge planning.

Being able to access a patient's hospitalization history, current and past, enables hospitalists to consider the interventions at post discharge to prevent a future near-term admission.

"The ongoing shift to valued based medicine means that providers must be prepared to manage risk and get ahead of it as often as possible. Given that our data can help groups gain better insight into what is happening as a patient episode unfolds, we realized we could package and deliver the data to better position our customers to manage the risk they face," said Eugene Schneider, MedAptus’ CEO. "Our Risk Series, mobile apps and Assign solution, which enables optimal patient distribution based on factors such as continuity and acuity, make MedAptus a strong technology partner for hospitalists who are always on the go and simultaneously balancing patient quality, outcomes and satisfaction."

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