Introduction: In recent years, the goal of healthcare has shifted. Not so long ago, the sole treatment of acute or chronic illness was the focus of the healthcare field. This can be referred to as a tertiary prevention technique (AMFC…..). In practice, tertiary prevention includes the rehabilitation of a patient after an acute illness or injury. However, this can prove to be costly and oftentimes ineffective at eliminating remission. What if healthcare providers could prevent the acute illness from ever happening by addressing disease factors or enhancing resistance? This is called primary prevention, and has become the goal of healthcare providers around the world. It can be argued that the most important intervention in primary prevention
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This in turn means that more money must be spent to treat a single patient. Hospital readmission rates have recently come under more scrutiny. Section 3025 of the Affordable Care Act established the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program, which requires the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to reduce payments to hospitals with an excess of readmissions (cms.gov). These readmission rates are judged by the quality of care received through randomized audits and reimbursed accordingly. A major standard of quality care that is related to readmission rates is the performance and documentation of patient education. The current standard for patient education is at least one time per day (DCH intranet). Hospitals are constantly under the real threat of receiving audits, and those not meeting standards are at risk of not being reimbursed for their treatment. Consequently, it is imperative that nurses and other healthcare providers not only practice primary prevention through patient education but also document the extent of the education provided. This would give the patient the best chance at avoiding acute illness and the hospital the best chance of receiving reimbursements. It appears, however, that nurses are either not providing patients with education or that the nurses are not documenting the instances in which they
This in turn means that more money must be spent to treat a single patient. Hospital readmission rates have recently come under more scrutiny. Section 3025 of the Affordable Care Act established the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program, which requires the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to reduce payments to hospitals with an excess of readmissions (cms.gov). These readmission rates are judged by the quality of care received through randomized audits and reimbursed accordingly. A major standard of quality care that is related to readmission rates is the performance and documentation of patient education. The current standard for patient education is at least one time per day (DCH intranet). Hospitals are constantly under the real threat of receiving audits, and those not meeting standards are at risk of not being reimbursed for their treatment. Consequently, it is imperative that nurses and other healthcare providers not only practice primary prevention through patient education but also document the extent of the education provided. This would give the patient the best chance at avoiding acute illness and the hospital the best chance of receiving reimbursements. It appears, however, that nurses are either not providing patients with education or that the nurses are not documenting the instances in which they