• Carmel Martin, Narelle Hinkley, Keith Stockman, and Donald Campbell.
• Community Health, Monash Health, Dandenong, Victoria, Australia.
• J Eval Clin Pract. 2021 Apr 1; 27 (2): 228-235.

Rationale, Aims, And ObjectivesHealthLinks: Chronic Care is a state-wide public hospital initiative designed to improve care for cohorts at-risk of potentially preventable hospitalizations at no extra cost. MonashWatch (MW) is an hospital outreach service designed to optimize admissions in an at-risk cohort. Telehealth operators make regular phone calls (≥weekly) using the Patient Journey Record System (PaJR). PaJR generates flags based on patient self-report, alerting to a risk of admission or emergency department attendance. 'Total flags' of global health represent concerns about self-reported general health, medication, and wellness. 'Red flags' represent significant disease/symptoms concerns, likely to lead to hospitalization.MethodsA time series analysis of PaJR phone calls to MW patients with ≥1 acute non-surgical admissions in a 20-day time window (10 days pre-admission and 10 days post-discharge) between 23 December 2016 and 11 October 2017. Pettitt's hypothesis-testing homogeneity measure was deployed to analyse Victorian Admitted Episode/Emergency Minimum Datasets and PaJR data.FindingsA MW cohort of 103 patients (mean age 74 ± 15 years; with 59% males) had 263 admissions was identified. Bed days ranged from <1 to 37.3 (mean 5.8 ± 5.8; median 4.1). The MW cohort had 7.6 calls on average in the 20-day pre- and post-hospital period. Most patients reported significantly increased flags 'pre-hospital' admission: medication issues increased on day 7.0 to 8.5; total flags day 3, worse general health days 2.5 to 1.8; and red flags of disease symptoms increased on day 1. These flags persisted following discharge.Discussion/ConclusionThis study identified a 'pre-hospital syndrome' similar to a post-hospital phase aka the well-documented 'post-hospital syndrome'. There is evidence of a 10-day 'pre-hospital' window for interventions to possibly prevent or shorten an acute admission in this MW cohort. Further validation in a larger diverse sample is needed.© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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