We were able to actually
do quantitative analysis
to determine that the
best timing of a post
hospitalization visit
was at seven days.
And by doing that,
we affected the care
of 70,000 members a year who
are discharged from Kaiser
Permanente hospitals.
And our readmission rates
are coming down in response.
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So much of medicine historically
is passed down from generation
to generation.
And we do things
just because that's
the way they were done before
without really knowing if they
improved the lives of people.
And so I'm very data
driven and data oriented.
And it just makes
complete sense to me
that we should use
data to find out
whether what we're doing
actually works or not.
And so we ask questions that
were important to patients
and the doctors who
take care of them,
and to help to generate
the body of knowledge that
would allow other physicians
to practice better medicine.
The CIRT, or the care
improvement research team,
is our research
operations partnership.
And the overall
goal is to improve
quality and affordability.
At any point in time, we have
somewhere in the neighborhood
of 20 or 25 different
projects that are ongoing.
And those results are most
important to inform decision
making by local leaders.
But we also share those results
with the rest of the world.
Seven years ago, there
were virtually no programs
in other hospitals or health
systems around the country.
And the more typical situation
is that research is separate,
and hospital operations are
run completely independently.
So the idea of
bringing researchers
and clinical leaders and
administrators together
was really novel
and groundbreaking.
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