The Inquirer: Rehab after heart attack: How hospitals can make sure it happens

“… For each patient who underwent treatment for a heart attack or received a stent, the nudge alert was sent automatically via secure text to case managers and a transitions coordinator. The team then identified a rehab facility in the patient’s zip code, faxed a referral to that facility, and informed the patient that a representative would be in touch, said cardiac nurse Elizabeth Jolly, one of the researchers. The hospital also followed up with rehab centers by phone. ‘You’ve got to have some type of standard way to make it happen,’ she said. ‘Patients don’t necessarily do a great job when they’re charged with doing something on their own.’ Fittingly, one of Jolly’s collaborators in studying the ‘nudge’ alert was Mitesh S. Patel, director of the Nudge Unit — a behavioral design team embedded within the Penn Medicine health system. That unit has previously changed physician behavior with default settings in other electronic systems — including one effort that reduced the number of opioid pills in prescriptions and another that cut patient costs by listing generic medications ahead of pricier brand-name drugs…” Read more at The Inquirer.