Study: A third of pediatric hospital readmissions could be prevented

Hospital readmission rates are often used an indicator of the institutions’ effectiveness and getting and keeping patients healthy. It turns out 30 percent of those short-term readmissions for children could be avoided, according to a new study in the journal Pediatrics.

The study looked at 305 patients under the age of 18 who were readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of an initial discharge between December 2012 and February 2013.

That determination came from ratings on the four-point Likert scale, which ranks how preventable a readmission was.

Researchers arrived at those scores through almost 1,200 interviews conducted with the patients’ families and caretakers matched with medical records and the patients themselves. To avoid placing an undue burden on the hospital for factors outside of their control, the study didn’t include patients who were undergoing scheduled treatments.

In the end, 90 of the 305 readmissions were found the be potentially preventable, with almost 12 percent of the overall readmissions considered to be very likely preventable. And according to the researchers, there weren’t discernable differences in the preventable/unpreventable numbers along demographic information.

About 64 percent of the readmissions were due to chronic illness, with about half (49 percent) related to the patients’ initial hospitalizations. About a third of them were due to a hospital issue (especially post-op complications or hospital-acquired infections), while about 18 percent were due to a patient issue.

The data also showed that patients who were readmitted to the hospital within a shorter period or for reasons connected to their original hospitalization were also more likely to be there for a potentially preventable reason.

The hospital overall showed a 6.5 percent readmission rate during the study period.

The study authors said they consider a 30 percent potential prevention rate high enough to warrant extra efforts to identify readmission causes and find ways to prevent them, such as improving patient-caregiver communication and being more careful with follow-ups.