Researchers divided CMS’ hospital-wide readmission measure cohort from July 2014 through June 2015 into two random samples. The patients in the cohort were Medicare recipients.
The researchers calculated the risk-standardized readmission rate within 30 days for each hospital. They also classified hospitals into performance quartiles, with a lower readmission rate indicating better performance.
The study included 37,508 patients who had two admissions for similar diagnoses at 4,272 different hospitals. These admissions occurred more than one month and less than one year apart.
The study shows the median risk-standardized readmission rate was 15.5 percent. The observed readmission rate was consistently higher among patients admitted to hospitals in a worse-performing quartile than among those admitted to hospitals in a better-performing quartile.
However, the difference was only significant when comparing admissions to hospitals in the best-performing quartile and the worst-performing quartile.
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