Patients who are readmitted within 30 days to a hospital different than the one from which they were discharged face a higher 30-day mortality risk, according to a study in CAMJ Open.
Researchers analyzed data of more than 198,000 patients from all 21 acute-care adult general hospitals in Toronto, Canada between 1995 and 2010.
They found patients readmitted to a different hospital experienced a 22.3 percent 30-day mortality rate, while patients readmitted to the same hospital experienced an 18.6 percent 30-day mortality rate.
Researchers noted 81.7 percent of patients were readmitted to the same hospital, and 18.3 percent of patients were readmitted to an alternate hospital. Additionally, patients readmitted to alternate hospitals were more likely to be older, male, living in a chronic care facility and have co-morbidities.
Researchers suggest clinicians inform patients of potential advantages of returning to original hospital should they require readmission. They suggest further investigation is needed to determine if this trend is indicative of causation instead of an unrelated correlation.
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