The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has analyzed the state’s emergency department visits, hospital admissions and hospital readmissions and found that over the course of a year nearly 1.3 million of those patient visits costing nearly $2 billion were potentially preventable.  

MDH used 2012 claims data from the Minnesota All Payer Claims Database (MN APCD) and data analytics developed by Minnesota’s 3M Company to estimate the volume of potentially preventable patient visits to hospitals and emergency departments, according to a release.  Minnesota is the first state in the nation to successfully conduct such an analysis using APCD data and set a baseline estimate for potentially preventable hospital visits.

“Minnesota has one of the most efficient and cost-effective healthcare systems in the nation but this study shows we still have room for improvement,” said Minnesota Commissioner of Health Ed Ehlinger, MD, MSPH. “Equipped with these findings, we will work with providers and community leaders to ensure patients more consistently receive the right care, in the right place at the right time.”

Nearly 50,000 events were potentially preventable hospital admissions totaling $373 million. The top three conditions for potentially preventable admissions included: pneumonia, excluding pneumonia related to bronchiolitis and respiratory syncytial virus (13 percent), heart failure (12.1 percent), and COPD (8.1 percent).

About 22,000 hospital readmissions costing $237 million were found to be potentially preventable. For readmissions, the three most frequent conditions account for approximately 15.2 percent of all readmissions and include heart failure (6.6 percent), blood infection (septicemia) and disseminated infection (5.1 percent), and major depressive disorder and other unspecified psychoses (3.5 percent).