Readmissions Battle Gets Help from Tech

Think about how the travel industry exploits the information they now have about travelers to maximize their profits and yet pamper their customers. This is the mindset that healthcare needs to adopt.

Data-driven technology is the linchpin to making this happen in hospitals. Think of how those in the travel and tourism business have been freed from the drudgery of manual tasks in order to spend more time with customers. That should be happening across the board in healthcare too.

The move to Accountable Care Organizations will pull in the stragglers, but it's clear many providers aren't waiting for that in order to fix broken and costly processes today.

There's also increasing federal funding for making programs like this happen. Earlier this month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services announced a second set of sites for its Community-Based Care Transition Program (CCTP). CCTP provides funding to test models for improving care transitions for high-risk Medicare patients. For more information on these sites, check out the March 14 announcement by the National Transitions of Care Coalition.