Impact of Personal Health Records on Stroke Readmission and Outpatient Follow Up Rates (P1.354)

Objective: To improve readmission and outpatient follow up rates of stroke patients who are discharged home. Background: Readmissions can be a significant burden on our healthcare system. Educating our stroke patients about their medical conditions and having adequate follow up is important to their recovery and prognosis. We conducted a quality improvement project by distributing a Personal Health Record (PHR) at discharge and investigating its effect on our readmission and outpatient stroke neurology follow up rates. Methods: All stroke patients over a 12 month period with the discharge disposition of home were included in our study. The control group was discharged over the first 6 month period with our standard stroke discharge instructions including hospital course, medications and follow up appointments. The PHR group was discharged over the following 6 month period using standard discharge instructions and a PHR binder which consisted of 3 sections including a calendar, a medication page, and a note section. It was filled out by the patient with a neurology provider present. The readmission and outpatient stroke follow up rates were examined with a chart review and statistically analyzed by using JMP software. Results: There were 98 patients in the control group and 90 in the PHR group. When comparing outpatient follow up rates, the control group showed up to 68.4[percnt] of their appointments versus 70.2[percnt] in the PHR group which was not statistically significant (p>0.05). When comparing readmission rates, the PHR group had 4 readmissions versus 12 in the control group which was statistically significant (p<0.05). Conclusions: This data suggests that a PHR could be an effective tool to provide stroke patients with the knowledge of their own medical conditions. This can help improve their readmission rates and provide better care for our stroke patients after discharge. Disclosure: Dr. Cherian has nothing to disclose. Dr. Cho has nothing to disclose. Dr. Erney has nothing to disclose. Dr. Smith has nothing to disclose. Dr. Khawaja has nothing to disclose.