Case Study: Bryan Health Reduces Readmissions and Improves Discharge Education with NRC Health

Bryan Health Educates Patients One Discharge at a Time

Bryan Health, through Bryan Medical Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, was working to improve patient-centered discharge education and reduce avoidable readmissions, especially for high-risk conditions such as heart failure, pneumonia, and COPD. To support these efforts, the health system partnered with NRC Health and focused on strengthening discharge information, care transitions, and post-discharge support.

With help from NRC Health, Bryan Health implemented more coordinated discharge planning, teach-back education, standardized transfer packets, medication reconciliation, follow-up scheduling, and targeted programs for heart failure and COPD patients, supported by analytics such as the LACE risk tool. The results included heart failure readmissions falling from above 30% to as low as 12.8% in a full year, and pneumonia readmissions dropping from about 24% to as low as 5% in the summer, demonstrating a meaningful reduction in readmissions.

Bryan Health

Dawn Isaacs

Nurse Manager, Surgical/Vascular Unit and Nursing Float Pool