PrevMED oral health-care treatments for nursing home patients may decrease hospital admissions
STEVENSVILLE, Maryland---PrevMED has announced that preliminary findings in a new report suggests that hospital admission rates for residents of skilled nursing facilities using PrevMED for monthly, onsite oral hygiene care were reduced by more than 50% compared to the national average.
The April 2013 report indicates that the hospital admission rate for nursing home patients that used the PrevMED Oral Health Maintenance program during calendar year 2012 was significantly lower than the general hospital admission rate for skilled nursing facilities across the United States.
Using PrevMED clinical service delivery data, the report was written by Austin A. Lobo, PhD, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Washington College and Larry Braner, NHA, vice president of clinical services, PrevMED-Onsite Healthcare Services.
“Research has shown that poor oral hygiene can lead to infection and disease and if left untreated, can spread from the mouth to the rest of the body,” said Hosam Kamel, MD, CMD.
“The PrevMED report supports the notion that proper oral hygiene care may play an important role in reducing hospital admissions for nursing home patients.”
The statistical analysis of the data concluded that the hospital admission rate for residents of a skilled nursing facility that used the services of the PrevMED Oral Health Maintenance program during 2012 was calculated to be 11.65%. By comparison, the hospital admission rate for all residents of skilled nursing facilities across the U.S. is more than 25% (Grabowski, O’Malley, and Barhydt 2007) and (Polniaszek, Walsh, and Wiener 2011).
“The PrevMED Oral Health Maintenance program was designed by dental and medical experts for underserved populations,” said El Harris, president of PrevMED.
“We attempted to develop a clinically sound program aimed at reducing systemic disease in long-term care patients by controlling the oral disease issues which are so common among this population. We are encouraged that the data suggests the PrevMED monthly treatment program may also provide reduced hospitalizations for our patients and therefore reduce national health-care costs.”
PrevMED is continuing to study and evaluate these findings throughout 2013.
Harris stated, “We would like to identify a few large nursing home chains to perform joint hospitalization studies. Imagine the overall cost benefits of reducing hospital stays by providing monthly, oral hygiene to the residents we all serve.”
For more information, visit www.PrevMED.org.
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