The first Alert this month
looked at preventable hospital readmissions and ways to attempt to
reduce the rate, which was 12.3 percent for Medicare patients in 2011.
There is much more to say on the topic, including an interesting study
published in the June 2013 issue of Health Affairs, Limits of Readmission Rates in Measuring Hospital Quality Suggest the Need for Added Metrics by Matthew J. Press and colleagues.
This study concluded that
30-day readmission rates fluctuated and that they were not well
correlated with other measures of hospital performance. At most,
therefore readmission rates should complement other quality indicators
and not be considered on their own.
Unplanned readmissions have
taken on a sizeable role in quality measurement in the last few years,
because they are such an accessible proxy for other measures. CMS is
not just reducing payments to hospitals with higher-than–expected
readmission rates for certain diagnoses, but it is...
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