Efforts to drive quality improvement inadvertently penalize hospitals serving...
To encourage hospitals to improve quality of care, Medicare penalizes those with higher than expected rates of readmission within 30 days of discharge. The logic behind the penalties is that if...
View ArticleWidely used software doesn't note differences in care quality among hospital...
The 3M software program, increasingly used to make payments to US hospitals based on readmission rates, doesn't clearly distinguish differences in care quality—one of the key factors involved in...
View ArticleMixed bag: Electronic health records and ICU quality improvement
Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine found significant reductions in central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) and surgical intensive care unit (SICU) mortality rates after...
View ArticleHospital readmission common after emergency general surgery
A study of patients who underwent an emergency general surgery procedure found that hospital readmission was common and varied widely depending on patient factors and diagnosis, according to a study...
View ArticleNYU Langone enhances patient experience by reducing referrals to facilities...
Referring a patient to an acute care facility following major cardiac, joint and spine surgery rather than the patient's own home may not always be necessary—according to findings of a new...
View ArticleStandardized approach makes outpatient thyroid surgery safe for even the...
A standardized treatment approach that starts with good screening and ends with patients going home to well-prepared caregivers, means outpatient thyroid surgery is safe for the vast majority of...
View ArticleStudy calls for closer examination of transitional care management program...
Reducing excessive medical costs associated with high hospital readmission rates is a pillar of health care reform. From 2007 to 2011, as many as 19 percent of patients in the United States returned to...
View ArticleStudy compares outcomes at VA hospitals vs. non-VA hospitals
Among older men with heart attack, heart failure or pneumonia, hospitalization at Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals, compared with hospitalization at non-VA hospitals, was associated with lower 30-day...
View ArticlePublic reporting of hospital readmissions hasn't cut rates
(HealthDay)—For patients with myocardial infarction (MI), heart failure, and pneumonia, the release of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) public reporting of hospital readmission...
View ArticleNew-onset A-fib post acute MI ups complications, readmission
(HealthDay)—New-onset atrial fibrillation (AF) after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is strongly tied to in-hospital complications and higher short-term readmission rates, according to a study...
View ArticleFocus on transitional care reduces hospital readmissions in stroke patients
A transitional stroke clinic developed by doctors and nurse practitioners at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center reduced 30-day readmission rates by 48 percent, according to a study published in the...
View ArticleReadmissions after complex cancer operations vary with institution type and...
Readmission rates after complex cancer operations tend to be higher in hospitals that are considered to be vulnerable because they serve as safety nets in their communities or have a high number of...
View ArticleChange in physician call system may up readmission rates
(HealthDay)—Change in physician call systems may increase hospital readmission rates, according to a study published recently in The American Journal of Medicine.
View ArticleLife and death: Team finds hospital readmissions sometimes save lives
A group of Johns Hopkins physicians and researchers today published an article in the Journal of Hospital Medicine suggesting that data on mortality and hospital readmission used by the United States...
View ArticleAchieving NP predischarge thresholds associated with reduced acute...
Low-strength evidence suggests that achieving brain-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and pro-brain-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) predischarge thresholds is associated with a reduced risk for...
View ArticleHospital readmission rates decrease after passage of ACA financial penalties
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) instituted financial penalties against hospitals with high rates of readmissions for Medicare patients with certain health conditions. A new analysis led by researchers at...
View ArticleHospitals in Medicare ACOs reduced readmissions faster
Hospitals in Medicare Accountable Care Organizations outpaced non-ACO hospitals in reducing the rate at which patients discharged to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) needed to return to the hospital,...
View ArticlePatients treated by international doctors have lower death rates
In the United States, patient death rates are lower for internationally trained graduates than for graduates from a US medical school, despite international graduates caring for patients with higher...
View ArticleHospital quality linked to readmission rates for COPD and other diseases
Nearly one in five patients admitted to hospitals in the United States are readmitted within 30 days, at a cost of $17 billion annually. To reduce readmission rates, the federal Centers for Medicare...
View ArticleTeam develops 'calculator' to predict risk of early hospital readmission
Patients who are discharged after a hospital stay will want to stay away from the hospital for as long as possible. However, in Singapore, approximately 15 per cent of patients who have been discharged...
View ArticleFewer repeat hospital admissions after 'vertical integration' of healthcare
"Vertical integration" of healthcare—closer coordination of care between primary care and hospitals—leads to a lower rate of hospital readmissions, suggests an experience from Portugal reported in the...
View ArticleRacial, ethnic disparities in pediatric readmission rates for chronic disease...
Disparities in pediatric readmission rates for chronic conditions such as asthma, depression, diabetes, migraines, and seizures vary, with the lowest one-year readmissions recorded for depression and...
View ArticleReadmission penalties don't correlate to heart attack outcomes
A program that penalizes hospitals for high early readmission rates of heart attack patients may be unfairly penalizing hospitals that serve a large proportion of African-Americans and those with more...
View ArticleStudy analyzes health care quality, IT, reimbursements
Management of health care quality and costs has become a prominent topic of debate and research in the last decade in the United States. A new study from The University of Texas at Dallas examines the...
View ArticleSocial factors of patients affect hospital performance measures
A team of researchers led by a University of Colorado School of Medicine faculty member found that measures to evaluate readmission rates at children's hospitals would be more accurate if the social...
View ArticleHospital discharge program improves patient experience leaving the hospital
A standardized, in-hospital discharge planning program, known as Project ReEngineered Dishcharge (RED), improves patient experience as they leave the hospital, according to researchers at Boston...
View ArticleStudy: Reducing hospital readmissions does not increase mortality rates
Recent advances in reducing hospital readmission rates for three key medical conditions occurred without causing an increase in death rates, according to a new Yale-led study.
View ArticleHospital quality independently impacts readmission rates
(HealthDay)—Hospital quality contributes to readmission rates independent of factors involving patients, according to a study published in the Sept. 14 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
View ArticleFederal policy to reduce re-hospitalizations is linked to increased mortality...
Federal policymakers five years ago introduced the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program to spur hospitals to reduce Medicare readmission rates by penalizing them if they didn't. A new analysis led by...
View ArticleACA program to reduce hospital readmissions not all it's cracked up to be
A federal program that has been shown to reduce hospital readmissions may not have been as successful as it appears, University of Michigan researchers report in the latest issue of the Journal of the...
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