Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset collaborates with rehab facility to prevent readmissions

Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset (N.J.) collaborated with Rehab at River's Edge, a rehabilitation center in Raritan, N.J., to implement a new approach to cardiac care that is aimed at reducing readmissions, according to a NJ BIZ report.

The program, A Breath of Fresh Care, was implemented nine months ago and involves moving congestive heart failure patients, who are discharged from the hospital, to the rehab facility for a week or more of sub-acute care. If the patient takes a turn for the worse, he or she returns to the hospital.

Before being discharge from the rehab facility, patients and their families are coached on proper diet, medications and exercise.

The first six months of the program were dedicated to intensive staff training. Three months ago, the program started admitting cardiac patients and there have been zero readmissions since then.

As high-performing sub-acute facilities emerge, "those are the places that hospitals are going to want to send their patients," said Mark Lebenthal, MD, the cardiologist who launched the program, according to the report.

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