Nearly 6 percent of people who underwent surgery were readmitted within 30 days, according to an analysis of U.S. hospitals. Results were recently published in JAMA [2015;313(5):483-495].
The authors mentioned that hospitals are being penalized if patients return after getting released, leading hospitals to pay closer attention to their readmittance rates.
This study examined 346 hospitals participating in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program between January 1, 2012, and December 31, 2012. The researchers evaluated surgical procedures as well as bariatric procedures, colectomy or proctectomy, hysterectomy, total hip or knee arthroplasty, ventral hernia repair and lower extremity vascular bypass.
Of the 498,875 operations performed in the hospitals, 5.7 percent resulted in unplanned re-admissions within 30 days of discharge. The readmission rate was highest in patients undergoing lower extremity vascular bypass (14.9 percent) and lowest for patients undergoing hysterectomy (3.8 percent). The most common reason for an unplanned readmission was surgical site infection, which occurred in 19.5 percent of readmissions.
“Readmissions after surgery were associated with new postdischarge complications related to the procedure and not exacerbation of prior index hospitalization complications, suggesting that readmissions after surgery are a measure of postdischarge complications,” the researchers wrote. “These data should be considered when developing quality indicators and any policies penalizing hospitals for surgical readmission.”
Executive Editor
Tim Casey joined TriMed Media Group in 2015 as Executive Editor. For the previous four years, he worked as an editor and writer for HMP Communications, primarily focused on covering managed care issues and reporting from medical and health care conferences. He was also a staff reporter at the Sacramento Bee for more than four years covering professional, college and high school sports. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA degree from Georgetown University.