Daily communication with physicians helps reduce hospital readmissions

Brief and personal conversations with a physician may reduce the rates of hospital readmission, a recent study has shown.

“Recurrent hospitalizations present significant financial burdens and health risks,” the authors said. “Poor communication and lack of personalized care are major contributors to preventable readmissions.”

Some 459 hospitalized patients aged 18 to 100 years were included in this prospective, case-control study. Those with dementia, limited communication abilities, or discharge within 24 h were excluded.

Participants in the intervention group (n=249) engaged in brief, personal conversations with physicians, while those in the comparison group (n=210) were hospitalized concurrently in other wards and received standard care. Eleven physicians underwent 1.5 h of training and had 3‒5 min personal conversations with patients daily as supplement to standard care.

Finally, the authors measured readmissions within 7 and 30 days after discharge and patient satisfaction.

Baseline characteristics were comparable between the intervention and comparisons, but patients in the intervention arm were older (66.7 vs 62.7 years; p=0.008).

In multivariate analysis, the intervention group were less likely to be readmitted at both 1 week (odds ratio [OR], 0.33, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.16‒0.66; p=0.002) and 30 days (OR, 0.54, 95 percent CI, 0.34‒0.88; p=0.012) following adjustments for covariates such as age, diagnosis severity, satisfaction, and sociodemographic factors.

“These findings support integrating personalized communication strategies into standard care to improve outcomes,” the authors said. “Future research should confirm these finding in larger samples and explore optimal frequency and duration of such interactions.”