Charleston (W.V.) Area Medical Center saw a decrease in hospital readmissions after implementing a comprehensive readmission reduction strategy, which included the addition of a video-based patient education system from TeleHealth Services.
TeleHealth Services, headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., provides interactive patient engagement solutions to more than 2,500 healthcare clients across the nation. CAMC implemented the company's patient education platform in 2015 in accordance with a system-wide effort to reduce readmissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other chronic conditions. A year later, readmissions for COPD dropped by nearly 30 percent. West Virginia's hospitalization rates for COPD regularly exceed the national average.
"As a physician I've seen the importance of education in helping people take better care of themselves after a hospitalization," said Don Lilly, MD, associate chief medical officer at CAMC. "A lot of our patients have literacy issues, so reading is not the best way for them to learn. Video is an effective way for our patients to learn about their disease process and how they can manage it."
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