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Understanding Patients’ Decisions to Obtain Unplanned, High-Resource Health Care After Colorectal Surgery
- Source :
- Qualitative Health Research
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- SAGE Publications, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Readmissions and emergency department (ED) visits after colorectal surgery (CRS) are common, burdensome, and costly. Effective strategies to reduce these unplanned postdischarge health care visits require a nuanced understanding of how and why patients make the decision to seek care. We used a purposefully stratified sample of 18 interview participants from a prospective cohort of adult CRS patients. Thirteen (72%) participants had an unplanned postdischarge health care visit. Participant decision-making was classified by methodology (algorithmic, guided, or impulsive), preexisting rationale, and emotional response to perceived health care needs. Participants voiced clear mental algorithms about when to visit an ED. In addition, participants identified facilitators and barriers to optimal health care use. They also identified tangible targets for health care utilization reduction efforts, such as improved care coordination with streamlined discharge instructions and improved communication with the surgical team. Efforts should be directed at improving postdischarge communication and care coordination to reduce CRS patients’ high-resource health care utilization.
- Subjects :
- Adult
caregivers
medicine.medical_specialty
emergency care
health seeking
Aftercare
users’ experiences
Patient Readmission
health behavior
determinants of health
Health care
Humans
Medicine
Prospective Studies
Social determinants of health
crisis management
Prospective cohort study
Research Articles
Surgical team
behavior
business.industry
Information seeking
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
health
decision-making
Emergency department
information seeking
medicine.disease
health care
Southeastern United States
Patient Discharge
Colorectal surgery
Stratified sampling
crisis
qualitative
caretaking
Medical emergency
Emergency Service, Hospital
business
Colorectal Surgery
Delivery of Health Care
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15527557 and 10497323
- Volume :
- 31
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Qualitative Health Research
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....b3427b39101e6e45a9ed44a3a9cf6b7f