Hospital Readmissions as a Measure of Quality of Health Care: Advantages and Limitations

Abstract

We reviewed the recent literature on hospital readmissions and found that most of them are believed to be caused by patient frailty and progression of chronic disease. However, from 9% to 48% of all readmissions have been judged to be preventable because they were associated with indicators of substandard care during the index hospitalization, such as poor resolution of the main problem, unstable therapy at discharge, and inadequate postdischarge care. Furthermore, randomized prospective trials have shown that 12% to 75% of all readmissions can be prevented by patient education, predischarge assessment, and domiciliary aftercare. We conclude that most readmissions seem to be caused by unmodifiable causes, and that, pending an agreed-on method to adjust for confounders, global readmission rates are not a useful indicator of quality of care. However, high readmission rates of patients with defined conditions, such as diabetes and bronchial asthma, may identify quality-of-care problems. A focus on the specific needs of such patients may lead to the creation of more responsive health care systems for the chronically ill.