Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of interprofessional student-team home visits on the health outcomes of super-utilizers of the health care system. The cost of health care continues to increase at an unsustainable pace. Innovative educational approaches integrated with existing models of care are an example of a potential strategy aimed at reducing costs and improving outcomes. The model implemented in this study is referred to as hotspotting, an emerging term that describes an intervention during which super-utilizers are the focus of the intervention. Teams of interprofessional health professions students performed home visits on these patients in conjunction with the patients being in the care of one home health agency. This study analyzed 30-day hospital readmission rates and emergency department visits of the super-utilizers. There were twenty patients in the intervention group and twenty patients in the control group. Data analysis revealed a statistically significant difference in 30-day readmission rates between the two groups, with the group receiving interprofessional student-team home visits having fewer 30-day hospital readmissions. The number of emergency department visits were too small to warrant analysis. Home health agencies may find hotspotting an effective intervention to decrease costs and improve patient outcomes.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 13810081; ProQuest document ID: 2271928065. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Jennifer T. Alderman, PhD, MSN, RN, CNL, CNE, CHSE, NEA-BC

Sigma Membership

Alpha Alpha

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Quasi-Experimental Study, Other

Research Approach

Other

Keywords:

Interprofessional Education, Social Determinants of Health, Super-Utilizers

Advisor

Susan Letvak

Degree

PhD

Degree Grantor

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Degree Year

2019

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2024-09-09

Full Text of Presentation

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