HEALTH VISITOR INTERVENTION TO REDUCE DAYS OF UNPLANNED HOSPITAL RE-ADMISSION IN PATIENTS RECENTLY DISCHARGED FROM GERIATRIC WARDS - THE RESULTS OF A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED-STUDY

A randomised controlled trial was conducted to assess whether a single intervention by a health visitor reduced the unplanned re-admission o f elderly people discharged from geriatric wards. Two hundred and four consecutive. discharges from geriatric wards were randomly allocated to receive either a single visit from the health visitor at 72 h in ad dition to normal follow-up services or to a control group receiving th e normal follow-up services. The primary outcome measure was the unpla nned re-admissions over the following 6 months. There were 40 cases an d 43 control patients with unplanned re-admissions in the first 6 mont hs. The total lengths of the unplanned re-admissions were 1237 days fo r cases and 1427 for controls, an average of 12.1 days for cases and 1 4.0 for controls (95% confidence interval -4.9 to 8.7 days, not signif icant). A visit by a health visitor to elderly patients after discharg e from geriatric wards is unlikely to be of sufficient benefit to the patients for the service to be funded from a saving in unplanned re-ad missions.