Automated texts reduce chances of rehospitalization, Penn Medicine study finds - The Daily Pennsylvanian

A survey from the Perelman School of Medicine recovered that texts trim the accidental of rehospitalization. Credit: Sophia Leung

A Penn survey recovered that the usage of automated texting to patients aft hospitalization reduces the hazard of rehospitalization and the usage of acute attraction resources.

The JAMA Network Open study conducted by the Perelman School of Medicine observed that automatic texts sent to a post-hospitalized diligent by their superior attraction offices importantly reduced the patient’s chances of needing further care.

The cohort study, which was conducted from Jan. 27 to Aug. 27, 2021, utilized a difference-in-differences attack astatine 2 superior attraction practices successful Philadelphia successful which the interventional practice's patients received automated substance messages connected a tapering docket for up to 30 days aft their discharge.

To mitigate enactment bias, researchers utilized an intention-to-treat attack successful their analyses. They calculated a 55% simplification successful the accidental that the diligent would person to enactment astatine the infirmary again wrong the adjacent 30 days and a 41% diminution successful the anticipation that they would request acute attraction of immoderate benignant wrong the adjacent month. Patients were besides 33% little apt to necessitate the exigency section astatine all.

The study’s archetypal author, Eric Bressman, is simply a chap successful the National Clinical Scholars Program astatine Penn.

“In a fragmented wellness attraction landscape, comparatively elemental applications of exertion tin assistance patients consciousness much connected to their superior attraction practice,”  Bressman told Penn Today. 

Bressman added that this transportation is particularly important arsenic patients are recovering from superior illnesses. 

“It reminds them that they person a aesculapian location to which they tin crook for support,” helium said.

Anna U. Morgan, an adjunct prof of objective medicine astatine Penn and elder writer of this study, has had acquisition with automated texting successful the tract of medicine anterior to the study. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Morgan was the aesculapian manager of COVID Watch, a programme that utilized automated texting regular to cheque whether a patient’s symptoms were worsening. 

“This survey adds to a increasing assemblage of grounds that connecting with patients done substance messaging tin assistance patients execute amended wellness outcomes and adjacent prevention lives,” Morgan told Penn Medicine News.