Strategies to prevent hospital readmission and death in patients with chronic heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and chronic kidney disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

backgroundReadmission following hospital discharge is common and is a major financial burden on healthcare systems.

objectivesOur objectives were to 1) identify studies describing post-discharge interventions and their efficacy with respect to reducing risk of mortality and rate of hospital readmission; and 2) identify intervention characteristics associated with efficacy.

methodsA systematic review of the literature was performed. We searched MEDLINE, PubMed, Cochrane, EMBASE and CINAHL. Our selection criteria included randomized controlled trials comparing post-discharge interventions with usual care on rates of hospital readmission and mortality in high-risk chronic disease patient populations. We used random effects meta-analyses to estimate pooled risk ratios for all-cause and cause-specific mortality as well as all-cause and cause-specific hospitalization.

resultsWe included 31 randomized controlled trials encompassing 9654 patients (24 studies in CHF, 4 in COPD, 1 in both CHF and COPD, 1 in CKD and 1 in an undifferentiated population). Meta-analysis showed post-discharge interventions reduced cause-specific (RR = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.63-0.80) and all cause (RR = 0.90, 95% CI = 0.81-0.99) hospitalization, all-cause (RR = 0.73, 95% CI = 0.65-0.83) and cause-specific mortality (RR = 0.68, 95% CI = 0.54-0.84) in CHF studies, and all-cause hospitalization (RR = 0.52, 95% CI = 0.32-0.83) in COPD studies. The inclusion of a cardiac nurse in the multidisciplinary team was associated with greater efficacy in reducing all-cause mortality among patients discharged after heart failure admission (HR = 0.64, 95% CI = 0.54-0.75 vs. HR = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.73-1.03).

conclusionsPost-discharge interventions reduced all-cause mortality, cause-specific mortality, and cause-specific hospitalization in CHF patients and all-cause hospitalization in COPD patients. The presence of a cardiac nurse was associated with greater efficacy in included studies. Additional research is needed on the impact of post-discharge intervention strategies in COPD and CKD patients.