2021 Volume 21 Issue 4 Pages 205-209
In the fiscal year 2008 Revision of Medical Fee, the management fee for regional medical cooperation (RMC) of stroke centers and recovery rehabilitation hospitals was founded in the Japanese Health Insurance and continued until 2016. The RMC aimed to shorten hospitalization in stroke centers and increase functional independence and discharge rate to home in acute stroke patients. Stroke regional critical pathway must be completed between stroke centers and recovery rehabilitation hospitals to charge this fee.
In the RMC developed by Shonan Kamakura Stroke Center with recovery rehabilitation hospitals, we set criteria for patients' acceptance and required information, and agreed to send discharge summaries with stroke regional critical pathways to each other. We investigated our operation of RMC from 2008 to 2016.
During the study period, 4,119 stroke patients were admitted to our stroke center, and 2,109 patients (51.2％)were moved to recovery rehabilitation hospitals. The mean hospital stay was 9.8 days, and 100.0％ of patients who were moved to recovery rehabilitation hospitals carried stroke regional critical pathways. We received 1,944 discharge summaries from recovery rehabilitation hospitals and stroke regional critical pathways was completed in 92.1％ of patients. The discharge rate to home from recovery rehabilitation hospitals was 80.2％.
The stroke regional critical pathway according to criteria developed by Shonan Kamakura Stroke Center has worked over eight years as we planned.
