This paper is only available as a PDF. To read, Please Download here.
This investigation was designed to study the effects of home health care (HHC) on
patients who have been hospitalized with peripheral vascular disease. For a patient
to have HHC, the patient had to have a defined wound, educational needs, or both.
Sixty patients, 30 with HHC and 30 without, were contacted approximately 30 days after
theri last hospital discharge. The 30 patients with HHC were deemed to be at increased
risk because of multisystem disease with multiple medications, infirmity, early senility,
and often complex wounds. In a prospective fashion, each patient was interviewed by
either a registered nurse or medical student using a standardized data collection
form. The following issues were assessed: incidence of postoperative complications,
knowledge of the patient of his or her disease, compliance with medication (knowledge
of, regular use), incidence of readmission, and unscheduled clinic or emergency department
visits. Upon statistical analysis using the two-sample t-test and Pearson chi-square test, no significant differences were found between the
two groups in terms of complications, compliance, or patient education. HHC, therefore,
was found to be helpful to patients with peripheral vascular disease. In our study,
the use of HHC made the risk of complications in a group of patients with defined
teaching needs and wound care needs equal to that in a group with no such defined
needs on discharge from the hospital.
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to The American Journal of SurgeryAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- An analysis of the costs of ambulatory and inpatient care.Am J Public Health. 1986; 76: 1102-1104
- Prospective payment, some retrospective observations.N Engl J Med. 1988; 318: 1681-1682
- Randomized controlled trial of early discharge for inguinal hernia and varicose veins.Ann R Coll Surg Engl. 1977; 59: 251-254
- A randomized controlled trial of home care: clinical outcome for five surgical procedures.Can J Surg. 1976; 19: 519-523
- Home health care and rapid rehospitalization.Home Health Care Services Quarterly. 1982; 3: 25-37
- The early readmission of the elderly to the hospital.Age Ageing. 1985; 14: 37-42
Article info
Footnotes
†Presented at the 18th Annual Meeting of the Society for Clinical Vascular Surgery, Palm Desert, California, March 7–11, 1990.
Identification
Copyright
© 1990 Reed Publishing USA. Published by Elsevier Inc.
