Special Home Care After Bypass Surgery Reduces Risk of Readmission

Patients who undergo coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery face less chance of readmission and death after 30 days of surgery if they get special home care along with home visits from a cardiac surgery nurse practitioner, revealed a study. According to the researchers, patients who received traditional care faced three times more chance of readmission or death after surgery compared to patients who got nurse practitioner home visits.

As part of the study, researchers followed 401 patients who had heart bypass surgery in a New York hospital in 2010 and 2011. Of the total, 232 got traditional care after discharge and 169 were enrolled in a pilot programme called Follow Your Heart.

The authors of the study, led by Michael H. Hall, MD, MBA, of the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York, Of the FYH group, found that after surgery 3.85 per cent patients were either readmitted to the hospital or died in the next 30 days compared to 11.54 per cent patients who got traditional care.

“The nurse practitioners are the key to this programme's success because they provide patients they know from the hospital setting with robust continuity of care they need immediately after hospital discharge, while helping community resources better prepare for the patient handoff,” Hall said.

The study which was published in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery said that Follow Your Heart programme was also cost saving tool.

Source-Medindia