In fact, the researchers, using data from more than 3,000 U.S. hospitals, found that a higher rate of readmissions for heart failure was connected to a lower 30-day mortality rate.
The researchers suggest that improving patient survival rates past the one-month mark may require extra physician visits, procedures or surgery, which consequently increases the 30-day readmission rate.
Cleveland Clinic researchers began to examine high readmission rates when they noticed their 30-day readmission rate, at 28 percent, was worse than the national average of 24.7 percent. However, their 30-day death rate for Medicare patients of 8.8 percent with heart failure is better than the national average of 11.2 percent.
Read the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report on readmission rates.
Read more about readmission rates:
–HHS Adds Hospital Outpatient and ED Quality Date to Public Websites
–One-Quarter of Hospital Patients Readmitted Within Two Years
