The IMPACT of an interdisciplinary goals-of-care program on readmission rates at a comprehensive care center

6565 Background: Unplanned readmissions are associated with substantial distress for patients and their families. We hypothesized that goals-of-care (GOC) discussions, by improving goal-concordant care, may reduce unplanned readmissions. However, only a handful of studies have specifically examined this question. We assessed the implementation of a system-wide multicomponent interdisciplinary GOC (myGOC) program on the 30-day unplanned readmission rate and other hospital outcomes for medical patients at our comprehensive cancer center. Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, we compared the 30-day unplanned readmission rates in consecutive medical patients during the pre-implementation period from May 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019 and the post-implementation period from May 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020. The primary outcome was the 30-day unplanned readmission rate as defined by Vizient. Secondary outcomes included 7-day unplanned readmission rates, inpatient do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders and supportive care consults. A multi-variate analysis model was used to examine the association between 30-day unplanned readmission rates and the implementation of the myGOC program adjusting for age, sex, race, index hospitalization type, and Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score. Results: This study included 7028 and 5982 unique medical patients during the pre- and post-implementation period, respectively. The 30-day unplanned readmission rates decreased from 13.7% before to 12.0% after implementation of the myGOC program. After adjusting for covariates, the myGOC implementation remained significantly associated with a reduction in 30-day unplanned readmission rates (OR [95% CI] 0.85 [0.77, 0.95], p=0.003). Other factors significantly associated with a decreased likelihood of a 30-day unplanned readmission were hematologic malignancies (vs. solid: 0.71 [0.64, 0.79]), White race (vs. Hispanic: 0.86 [0.75, 0.98]), an inpatient DNR order (0.30 [0.25, 0.37], an ICU admission (0.58 [0.48, 0.71], and an emergent admission (vs. elective: 0.86 [0.76, 0.99]). We also observed a significant decrease in 7-day unplanned readmission rates (0.75 [0.64, 0.89], p=0.0009), an increase in inpatient DNR orders (1.48 [1.35, 1.63], p<0.0001) and an increase in supportive care consults (1.22 [1.13, 1.31], p<0.0001) post-implementation. Conclusions: Implementation of a system-wide multicomponent GOC intervention was associated with a significant reduction in 30-day unplanned readmission rates after accounting for other key clinical factors.