Abstract
Thirty-day hospital readmissions remain a persistent quality and financial concern for acute care organizations. Poorly coordinated discharge processes, inconsistent follow-up appointment scheduling, and gaps in care transitions may increase the risk of avoidable readmissions among adult medical-surgical patients. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to implement a standardized follow-up appointment scheduling workflow prior to hospital discharge and evaluate its effect on follow-up scheduling compliance and 30-day readmission trends in a 93-bed acute care hospital. The intervention was implemented over 12 weeks on an adult medical-surgical unit from September through December 2025. The standardized workflow included electronic health record prompts, interdisciplinary discharge planning huddles, case management coordination, patient education, and follow-up appointment scheduling before discharge. Baseline data from January through August 2025 showed that the organization’s mean observed-to-expected 30-day readmission ratio was 0.98, exceeding the institutional target of ≤0.83. Baseline follow-up appointment scheduling also fell below the organizational benchmark of 70%, with rates as low as 21.37%. Approximately 1,620 eligible discharged patient encounters were included in the project evaluation after excluding observation and hospice encounters. During implementation, 30-day readmission rates decreased below the organizational benchmark in September and October, with rates of 0.66 and 0.73, respectively. However, readmission rates increased above the benchmark in November and December, with rates of 1.06 and 0.97, indicating that sustained readmission reduction was not achieved. Follow-up appointment scheduling improved during the implementation period, reaching 73.28% in September, 55.75% in October, 68.69% in 4 November, and 63.72% in December. Findings supported the feasibility of integrating follow-up appointment scheduling into existing discharge workflows and demonstrated improvement compared with baseline scheduling performance. However, sustained achievement of the 70% scheduling target and sustained reduction in 30-day readmissions were not achieved during the project period. Continued monitoring, workflow refinement, and interdisciplinary accountability are recommended to strengthen care transitions and support future readmission reduction efforts.
Date of publication
2026
Document Type
DNP Scholarly Project
Language
english
Persistent identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/10950/5100
Committee members
David Wolf
Degree
Doctor of Nursing Practice
Recommended Citation
kaur, sukhnandan, "DNP Final Report: REDUCING 30-DAY READMISSIONS THROUGH FOLLOW-UP APPOINTMENTS IN AN ACUTE CARE SETTING" (2026). DNP Final Reports. Paper 94.
http://hdl.handle.net/10950/5100