Text message program shows 60 percent of opioid tablets unused after common procedures eurekalert.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurekalert.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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After more than 1,000 orthopaedic procedures at a city health system, roughly 61 percent of the opioids prescribed to patients went unused, according to new research. This was discovered within a study at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania that showed most patients responded to text messages designed to gauge patients usage of their prescriptions. Knowing that so many patients are comfortable texting this information to their care teams is extremely useful as medical professionals look to right-size painkiller prescriptions and reduce the amount of opioids that might be misused when they re left over. This study was published in
The rate of hospital readmissions for hip and knee replacement patients declined from roughly 12% to 3% when they were part of a “hovering” program, according to a new study.
“There are great opportunities for health systems and clinicians to improve the quality and value of care for patients getting hip and knee joint replacement surgery, and some of the most important advances are focused on what happens when patients return home,” says Shivan Mehta, associate chief innovation officer at Penn Medicine and lead author of the study in
“Technology, behavioral science insights, and care redesign can help to improve care at home and prevent patients from coming back to the hospital unnecessarily.”
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Researchers saw a fourfold decline in the rate of patients who needed to go back to the hospital after total hip or knee replacements if they were enrolled in a program that used wearable step counters and conversational text messaging to keep tabs on recovery. The study was published in
JAMA Network Open today. There are great opportunities for health systems and clinicians to improve the quality and value of care for patients getting hip and knee joint replacement surgery, and some of the most important advances are focused on what happens when patients return home, said the study s lead author, Shivan Mehta, MD, associate chief innovation officer at Penn Medicine. Technology, behavioral science insights, and care redesign can help to improve care at home and prevent patients from coming back to the hospital unnecessarily.