Home Health PT Considerations for Patients with Heart Failure: A Preliminary Study

Purpose: Home healthcare professionals providing services to patients with heart failure (HF), should consider the current high rates of hospital readmissions. The purpose of this retrospective study is to determine if home health physical therapy impacts hospital readmissions in patients with HF. Methods: Electronic charts for patients with HF were analyzed, looking at the number of hospital readmissions during a single home health care episode, regardless of physical therapy (PT) delivery. Charts were also analyzed for number of PT visits and associated patient demographics, to determine their impact on rehospitalizations in this population. Results: Most of the sample included patients 65 to 84 years of age with Medicare benefits. 949 total charts were analyzed with 340 cases meeting the inclusion criteria using the SAS program. Of this sample size, 230 (67.6%) patients received physical therapy services with an average of 6 to 10 visits provided. 127 (35.4%) patients were readmitted to the hospital, with majority of the admits due to non-HF related reasons. Conclusions: There was no significance found in rehospitalization rate for patients receiving PT services verses those that did not. When PT services occurred, there was an average of 6 to 10 therapy visits provided and this may have some significance with the findings from this study. The results from this study indicate, women had a higher readmission rate (p=0.01) and majority of patient readmissions were Medicare beneficiaries (p=0.08). The varied clinical practicing styles and types of therapy interventions provided, could have influenced the findings in this study. Further research with a lager sample size and geographical region, may help healthcare professionals provide better clinical services to patients with HF