Co-creating a web portal to improve quality outcomes for patients in transition from hospital to home.

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Averting the 272, 809 unplanned readmissions following lower limb arthroplasties in Australia that were avoidable in 2015 would represent significant savings. While the majority of patients readmitted within 30-days understand their discharge plans, more than half experience difficulty with the self-care domains required to enact these. Our aim is to develop a web-portal with patients and clinicians to test our hypothesis that optimising patients� ability to manage their health (patient enablement) will reduce unplanned 30-day hospital readmissions. METHODS we are collaborating with orthopaedic surgeons from Calvary Healthcare and ACT Health, and students from the ANU TechLauncher programme from July 2017 to June 2018 to create the web-portal. Using qualitative methods to work in tight, iterative feedback loops is informing the development of the web portal. RESULTS Patients believe this resource will be effective in enabling them to manage their health pre and post-surgery. Clinicians anticipate that access to patients� self-reported information in the web portal will enable them to provide more responsive, individualised care. CONCLUSION Preliminary feedback indicates that the web-portal will be an effective intervention. We look forward to measuring its effectiveness in terms of patient enablement and reducing unplanned hospital readmissions.