“Nearly 30% of patients with newly formed ileostomies require hospital readmission from severe dehydration or associated complications. This contributes to significant morbidity and rising healthcare costs associated with this procedure. The aim of this study was to design and pilot a novel program to decrease readmissions in this patient population.”

“Implementation of a novel program reduced the 30-day readmission rate by 58% and cost of readmissions per patient by >80% in a high risk for readmission patient population with newly created ileostomies. Future efforts will expand this program to a greater number of patients, both institutionally and systemically, to reduce the readmission-rate and healthcare
costs for this high-risk patient population.”

“Ileostomy patients are at high risk for readmission, given their immense fluid and electrolyte losses. Our pilot program used targeted interventions by partnering with a home health agency to reduce all-cause readmission rates in new ileostomy patients. Ileostomy patients are susceptible to high complication rates and readmission rates of 17% to 24%,7 and this is consistent with the data from our cohorts. We achieved an improvement in the quality
of care of our patients by standardizing the post-acute care through the implementation of a specific order set that included a high frequency of visits by the home health agency, specific criteria for addressing dehydration, and importantly, one number to call for rapid response by
the surgery team if there was a clinical decline.”

Shaffer, Virginia O et al. “Decreasing Hospital Readmission in Ileostomy Patients: Results of Novel Pilot Program.” Journal of the American College of Surgeons vol. 224,4 (2017): 425-430 Full Text for Emory Users