LESSONS ON HOSPITAL READMISSIONS.

LESSONS ON HOSPITAL READMISSIONS. What I learned from the article about Berkshire Medical Center’s efforts to reduce readmissions of heart failure patients: More comparative studies of how hospitals treat patients are now being conducted, but the efforts are still at an early stage. Reducing readmissions requires hard, detailed, organized, systematic interaction with patients. Yet, although the chief of medicine says that “This is as complicated as it gets in health care,” scientific brilliance is not what is required. I have posted (for example, here) on proposals to make greater use of checklists in medical procedures. I wonder whether, as with washing hands, activities that are not intellectually challenging don’t receive as much attention as they should.