Following up on Heart-Failure Patients Reduces Readmission Rate
May 05, 2010
Hospitals that follow up within a week of discharge with patients who were hospitalized for heart failure have a lower 30-day readmission rate, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Specifically, patients in the quartile of hospitals least likely to follow up had a readmission rate of 23.3 percent compared with 20.9 percent for patients in the quartile of hospitals most likely to follow up.
Overall, one-fifth of hospitalized Medicare patients are readmitted within 30 days and more than one-third are readmitted within 90 days.
Read JAMA's release on readmissions.
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