Together with the Smidt Heart Institute at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, KelaHealth conducted a cardiac study to better predict hospital length of stay and formulate risk-based recommendations of postoperative care settings.
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) provides a catheter-based procedure for patients that are too risky for open-heart surgery. The procedure generally reduces recovery time from up to 6-weeks to several days. American College of Cardiology projected 50,000 TAVRs in 2018 with that number expected to double in 2020.
For patients who undergo a TAVR procedure in the U.S., it is common practice to recover postoperatively in the cardiac Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Recent medical literature has shown that patients at a lower risk for complications can safely recover in a routine surgical ward instead of the ICU. By targeting this “fast track protocol” based on individual risk levels, patients and hospitals alike can benefit from shorter hospital stays, improved recovery outcomes, better allocation of limited ICU beds, and overall cost savings .
Open to realigning its historic TAVR-recovery protocols to the clinically-accepted “fast track protocol”, the Smidt Heart Institute at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (CSMC) partnered with KelaHealth to investigate how effectively assigning patients to the ICU or routine surgical ward post-TAVR could impact patient care and associated costs.
With an average ICU stay in the U.S. costing twice as much as routine surgical ward care, CSMC recognized the potential for significant cost reduction with a more targeted approach to assigning post surgical care interventions for their TAVR patient population.
By implementing KelaHealth’s optimized patient recovery designation of care, the hospital identified potential cost savings of $12 million over 4 years for this single procedure, with savings of at least $3 million per year.
Discover more on how KelaHealth assists hospitals in surgical care outcomes by reading our hospital case studies here.