Hospital readmissions are tough to track as patients increasingly opt for other hospitals when they’re not satisfied with their care.
Vizient developed the CMS Qualified Entity Public Report last month and Kaufman Hall highlighted findings in a Sept. 5 article. The analysis showed around 33% of patients are readmitted to a new hospital, and readmission rates were slightly higher in urban areas than rural communities. However, rural patients were more likely admitted to a different hospital from where they originally received care.
“These ‘invisible returns’ complicate care coordination and outcome tracking. Such fragmentation disproportionately affects high-risk populations, particularly those in vulnerable areas (as measured by the Vizient Vulnerability Index, and those covered by Medicaid or Medicare,” the report stated.
The breakdown of readmissions to another hospital by specialty is below:
- Behavioral health: 61.3%
- Neurosciences: 55.6%
- Orthopedics: 40.2%
- Spine: 33.2%
- Women’s health: 33.2%
- Surgery: 29.3%
- Cancer: 29.2%
- Cardiovascular: 29.2%
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