Dataset Information

Early supported discharge for older adults admitted to hospital with medical complaints: a protocol for a systematic review

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Early supported discharge (ESD) aims to link acute and community care, allowing hospital inpatients to return home and continue to receive the necessary input from healthcare professionals that they would otherwise receive in hospital. The concept has been researched extensively in the stroke population, showing reduced length of stay for patients and improved functional outcomes. This systematic review aims to explore the totality of evidence for the use of ESD in an older adult population who have been hospitalised with medical complaints.

Methods

A systematic review of randomised controlled trials and quasi randomised controlled trials will be carried out in line with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Studies will be included if they provide an ESD intervention to older adults admitted to hospital for medical complaints compared with continuing inpatient care. MEDLINE, CINAHL, CENTRAL and EMBASE databases will be searched. The primary outcome measure will be length of hospital stay, secondary outcomes will include functional abilities, falls, quality of life, carer and patient satisfaction, unplanned emergency department re-presentation, unscheduled hospital readmission, nursing home admission or mortality. Titles and abstracts of studies will be screened independently by two authors. The Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool will be used independently by two reviewers to assess the methodological quality of the included studies. GRADE will be used to assess the quality of the body of evidence. A pooled meta-analysis will be conducted using RevMan software V.5.4.1, depending on the uniformity of the data.

Ethics and dissemination

The authors will present the findings of the review to a patient and public involvement stakeholder panel of older people that has been established at the Ageing Research Centre in the University of Limerick. Formal ethical approval is not required for the review as all data collected will be secondary data and will be analysed anonymously.

PROSPERO registration number

CRD42021223112.

SUBMITTER: Williams S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8557271 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:IntroductionOlder adults are clinically heterogeneous and are at increased risk of adverse outcomes during hospitalisation due to the presence of multiple comorbid conditions and reduced homoeostatic reserves. Acute geriatric units (AGUs) are units designed with their own physical location and structure, which provide care to older adults during the acute phase of illness and are underpinned by an interdisciplinary comprehensive geriatric assessment model of care. This review aims to update and synthesise the totality of evidence related to the effectiveness of AGU care on clinical and process outcomes among older adults admitted to hospital with acute medical complaints.DesignUpdated systematic review and meta-analysis METHODS AND ANALYSIS: MEDLINE, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Controlled Trials in the Cochrane Library and Embase electronic databases will be systematically searched from 2008 to February 2021. Trials with a randomised design that deliver an AGU intervention to older adults admitted to hospital for acute medical complaints will be included. The primary outcome measure will be functional decline at discharge from hospital and at follow-up. Secondary outcomes will include length of stay, cost of index admission, incidence of unscheduled hospital readmission, living at home (the inverse of death or institutionalisation combined; used to describe someone who is in their own home at follow-up), mortality, cognitive function and patient satisfaction with index admission. Title and abstract screening of studies for full-text extraction will be conducted independently by two authors. The Cochrane risk of bias 2 tool will be used to assess the methodological quality of the included trials. The quality of evidence for outcomes reported will be assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluations framework. A pooled meta-analysis will be conducted using Review Manager, depending on the uniformity of the data.Ethics and disseminationFormal ethical approval is not required as all data collected will be secondary data and will be analysed anonymously. The authors will present the findings of the review to a patient and public involvement stakeholder panel of older adults that has been established at the Ageing Research Centre in the University of Limerick. This will enable the views and opinions of older adults to be integrated into the discussion section of the paper.Prospero registration numberCRD42021237633.

Project description:Importance:As prospective payment transitions to bundled reimbursement, many US hospitals are implementing protocols to shorten hospitalization after major surgery. These efforts could have unintended consequences and increase overall surgical episode spending if they induce more frequent postdischarge care use or readmissions. Objective:To evaluate the association between early postoperative discharge practices and overall surgical episode spending and expenditures for postdischarge care use and readmissions. Design, Setting, and Participants:This investigation was a cross-sectional cohort study of Medicare beneficiaries undergoing colectomy (189?229 patients at 1876 hospitals), coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) (218?940 patients at 1056 hospitals), or total hip replacement (THR) (231?774 patients at 1831 hospitals) between January 1, 2009, and June 30, 2012. The dates of the analysis were September 1, 2015, to May 31, 2016. Associations between surgical episode payments and hospitals' length of stay (LOS) mode were evaluated among a risk and postoperative complication-matched cohort of patients without major postoperative complications. To further control for potential differences between hospitals, a within-hospital comparison was also performed evaluating the change in hospitals' mean surgical episode payments according to their change in LOS mode during the study period. Exposure:Undergoing surgery in a hospital with short vs long postoperative hospitalization practices, characterized according to LOS mode, a measure least sensitive to postoperative outliers. Main Outcomes and Measures:Risk-adjusted, price-standardized, 90-day overall surgical episode payments and their components, including index, outlier, readmission, physician services, and postdischarge care. Results:A total of 639?943 Medicare beneficiaries were included in the study. Total surgical episode payments for risk and postoperative complication-matched patients were significantly lower among hospitals with lowest vs highest LOS mode ($26?482 vs $29?250 for colectomy, $44?777 vs $47?675 for CABG, and $24?553 vs $27?927 for THR; P?<?.001 for all). Shortest LOS hospitals did not exhibit a compensatory increase in payments for postdischarge care use ($4011 vs $5083 for colectomy, P?<?.001; $6015 vs $6355 for CABG, P?=?.14; and $7132 vs $9552 for THR, P?<?.001) or readmissions ($2606 vs $2887 for colectomy, P?=?.16; $3175 vs $3064 for CABG, P?=?.67; and $1373 vs $1514 for THR, P?=?.93). Hospitals that exhibited the greatest decreases in LOS mode had the highest reductions in surgical episode payments during the study period. Conclusions and Relevance:Early routine postoperative discharge after major inpatient surgery is associated with lower total surgical episode payments. There is no evidence that savings from shorter postsurgical hospitalization are offset by higher postdischarge care spending. Therefore, accelerated postoperative care protocols appear well aligned with the goals of bundled payment initiatives for surgical episodes.

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Project description:BackgroundDelays in starting physical therapy after hospital discharge worsen deconditioning in older adults. Intervening quickly can minimize the negative effects of deconditioning. Telerehabilitation is a strategy that increases access to rehabilitation, improves clinical outcomes, and reduces costs. This paper presents the protocol for a pragmatic clinical trial that aims to determine the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a multi-component intervention offered by telerehabilitation for discharged older adults awaiting physical therapy for any specific medical condition.MethodsThis is a pragmatic randomized controlled clinical trial with two groups: telerehabilitation and control. Participants (n=230) will be recruited among individuals discharged from hospitals who are in the public healthcare system physical therapy waiting lists. The telerehabilitation group will receive a smartphone app with a personalized program (based on individual's functional ability) of resistance, balance, and daily activity training exercises. The intervention will be implemented at the individuals' homes. This group will be monitored weekly by phone and monthly through a face-to-face meeting until they start physical therapy. The control group will adhere to the public healthcare system's usual flow and will be monitored weekly by telephone until they start physical therapy. The primary outcome will be a physical function (Timed Up and Go and 30-s Chair Stand Test). The measurements will take place in baseline, start, and discharge of outpatient physical therapy. The economic evaluations will be performed from the perspective of society and the Brazilian public healthcare system.DiscussionThe study will produce evidence on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of multi-component telerehabilitation intervention for discharged older adult patients awaiting physical therapy, providing input that can aid the implementation of similar proposals in other patient groups.Trial registrationBrazilian Registry of Clinical Trials (ReBEC), RBR-9243v7 . Registered on 24 August 2020.

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