One Simple Thing Reduces The Risk of You Having to Go Back to Hospital

We love small and simple interventions that have a big impact. A study shows that check-in text messages from a primary care team can reduce hospital readmissions.

Even though a text can't diagnose or treat medical conditions, it does seem that this little nudging helps discharged patients take a moment to consider how their health is recovering and how they are adjusting to any new treatments.

Patients are connected to a source of support when follow-up texts are sent over 30 days.

Eric Bressman is an internist at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine.

As patients recover from acute illness, it is important that they are reminded that they have a medical home to turn to.

More than 400 people got text messages, but more than 1,000 didn't. There was a 55 percent decline in the likelihood that they would need to stay at the hospital again within the next month and a 41 percent reduction in the chance that they would need emergency care over the next 30 days.

The text message system began with three check-in texts a week in the first week. The text question was "Is there anything we can help you with today?" with various responses, such as "I don't feel well" and "I need help with my medicines".

If needed, patients were told to call the emergency services. The last text message was sent 30 days after the program started.

According to the researchers, the texts can help patients feel more connected and encourage them to seek extra help as soon as possible instead of waiting until emergency care or rehospitalization is needed again.

Text messages promise to be quicker, simpler, and more effective than phone calls when it comes to following up with people who have recently left the hospital. Some of the issues that a text messaging system could solve are related to the phone calls.

"In our experience, the calls can be time intensive, often go unanswered, and generally connect with patients only once, early in the course of their recovery," they wrote.

More than 80% of patients responded to at least one introductory text message in the trial, and the researchers hope that will lead to it being adopted and rolled out more widely.

The roll-out of more applications of digital medicine that bridge gaps in care and offer patients easier pathways to connect with their primary care team is our hope.

The research has appeared in a journal.