Case Study: St. Luke’s University Health Network 2023 Achievement Award

A Multidisciplinary Comprehensive Collaborative Approach to Decrease 30-Day Behavioral Health Readmissions and Enhance Care Quality 
Excellence in Care - Large Division

The Goal

To decrease unnecessary behavioral health (BH) readmissions. The network BH readmission rate for fiscal year 2020 (FY20) was 8.74 percent which is lower than the expected readmission rate of 10.34 percent but is still higher than suggested evidenced-based values. For FY20, the network BH readmission rate fluctuated between 6.7 percent and 13.6 percent. The network’s identified high-utilizer population of medical or mental health ED and/or inpatient services currently exceeds four hundred patients.

Intervention

A Readmission Task Force (RTF) was formed and initiated multidisciplinary interventions that were implemented by BH Nurse Navigation, BH Case Management, BH Therapeutic Programming, BH Providers, and Crisis.

Results

For FY21, the network BH readmission rate decreased to 4.96 percent (from 8.74% in FY20) and the network BH readmission rate fluctuated between 3.27 percent to 6.79 percent (from 6.7% to 13.6% in FY20). For FY22, the network BH readmission rate was 4.53 percent and the network BH readmission rate fluctuated between 2.18 percent to 6.90 percent.

The continued downward trend in network BH readmission rates over time demonstrates the sustainability of this quality project. For FY21 to FY22 (Dec) network BH, the BH Nurse Navigation diversion rate for patients at high risk for 30-day BH readmission fluctuated from 93 percent to 94.7 percent. For FY22 (April-Dec), regarding BH high-utilizing patients of ED services with active BH-HUCP’s, the network ED diversion rate fluctuated from 84 percent to 85 percent.

 

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Topics: Behavioral Health, Quality Initiatives

Revision Date: 2/28/2023

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