Behavioral Health
Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Collaborative Newsletter
May 2018

 
Recommendations for Care Transition Support (Part II)
  
Ensuring that patients attend their follow-up appointments is an essential component to avoiding readmissions.  An important aspect of encouraging your behavioral health patients to attend their appointments is preparing them for the visit.

Recommendations for Follow-up Appointments:

Provide a brief teaching to the patient (and family, if applicable) on the content of the follow-up visit and the topics that will be discussed:
  • Patient's goals for the visit, factors contributing to admission or emergency department visit and current medication regime
  • Patient's need for medication adjustment, follow-up on outstanding test results, monitoring and testing, psychosocial environmental factors, and instruction on self-management using Teach Back
  • Patient and family questions regarding warning signs and how to respond using Teach Back
  • Review crisis plan and ensure it continues to meet the needs of the patient.
  • Ask about any changes in the patient's living situation, including temporary or permanent changes in address, access to transportation or any previously unidentified concerns
  • Expect questions regarding why and how the patient's medical problems are being managed
  • Expect questions about OTC medications, vitamins, herbs, supplements, and legal or illegal substance use or abuse.
  • Expect questions about healthy lifestyle choices and support
     
 Source of recommendations:
 

News and Happenings:

IPF Surveys:
The IPF survey has been sent out to everyone. The survey should take less than 5 minutes to complete. If you have not already done so, please take a moment and complete the survey. The information you provide will be especially helpful for our upcoming onsite visits to your inpatient psychiatric facilities. 
 
Onsite Visits:
Melanie has already begun setting up onsite visits with each facility in our IPF Collaborative. This will be an opportunity to discuss the progress and/ or challenges experienced since the onsite visits last Spring. We look forward to hearing about new interventions you have implemented since those visits, get updates on your quality improvement projects, explore how we can help you understand and use your readmission measure dry run report to improve your care transition processes, et cetera. If you have not scheduled your visit yet, please contact Melanie to set up your visit.

Upcoming Important Dates:
 
IPF Collaborative Call
Learn about the resources and services available through your local Area Agency on Aging (AAA) for your behavioral health patients
Thursday, May 31, 2018
1:00-2:00 pm
800-747-5150
Access Code: 5273638
This material was prepared by GMCF for Alliant Quality, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Georgia and North Carolina, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contents presented do not necessarily reflect CMS policy.
Publication No. 11SOW-GMCFQIN-G1-18-27