Hospitals participating in the AF4Q effort were part of a virtual network where they developed, shared, and implemented quality improvement tools, strategies and lessons learned. Here are key results from the AF4Q quality improvement collaborative:
• Sixty percent of participating hospitals improved their 30-day readmission rates for heart failure patients. Combined, teams that reduced their readmissions rate avoided approximately 486 readmissions.
• Seventy-five percent of the hospitals improved their adherence to heart failure care standards.
• More than one million patients were screened for preferred spoken language, more than half a million were screened for preferred written language and more than 4,500 patients had qualified interpreters at both initial assessment and discharge.
• Ten thousand patients avoided leaving emergency departments before care was provided.
• Fifty-five percent of participating teams reduced the time patients spent in their EDs by an average of 30 minutes.
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