With an estimated $25 million in cost savings in 2014, a report from the Wisconsin Hospital Association shows improvements in hospital quality and cost savings.

The report said 2,714 patients had received improved care in the state last year. Part of that improvement came from hospitals’ efforts to reduce adverse drug effects, the report said.

For example, WHA partnered with the University of Wisconsin pharmacy school to decrease risks with high-alert medications, which can cause significant harm for patients if used incorrectly. Partly through setting better processes in patient evaluation and accurate calibrations for dosing, the first two quarters of data from 2014 showed a 43 percent decrease in adverse drug events, the report said.

WHA is also working to reduce patient readmissions from the current 8 percent, Kelly Court, WHA’s chief quality officer, said. Court said hospitals are working with care providers and the community to make sure patient care continues and is coordinated after a patient leaves the hospital.

“There are other people in the community that help take care of them after they leave the hospital, such as family members, nursing homes and physician clinics,” Court said. “Once they leave the hospital, their care doesn’t stop, even though the hospital’s care stops. There is a continuation of good care to help them continue their recovery process.”

There were also 22 community coalitions launched in 2014, whose members work to determine the main causes of readmissions, then make plans to help patients transition between admissions, the report said. In Wisconsin, there was a 7 percent reduction in readmissions over the last three years, compared with a 20 percent goal that the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services set.

Bobby Peterson, executive director of ABC for Health, said there needs to be an improvement in helping hospital patients maintain their health care coverage.

Once a patient leaves the hospital and then has to be readmitted, their coverage may have been dropped them, he said. 

“I think that is an area that needs a tremendous amount of work,” Peterson said. “Hospitals need to work on strategies, helping patients identify and find coverage.”

ABC for Health works with St. Mary’s and Meriter hospitals to help with health care. Patients are referred to ABC for Health, where they get help to identify coverage and to maintain coverage moving forward, Peterson said.

Court said Wisconsin hospitals have worked to maintain quality for many years and that the desire to continue improving it was intrinsic to hospitals’ missions.

“Every patient in our state deserves the very best of care possible,” Court said. “We are very lucky in Wisconsin because our hospitals and our physicians really believe in high quality care.”