CHICAGO, Apr 2, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Twenty percent of U.S. Medicare
patients must return to the hospital within one month of being discharged,
researchers said.
Study co-author Dr. Mark Williams of Northwestern's Feinberg School and
Northwestern Memorial Hospital said the study also found that more than half the
patients rehospitalized within 30 days appear not to have seen a physician as an
outpatient since they were released from the hospital.
"We were surprised that more than half of these patients weren't being seen by
their primary care doctors before they went back into the hospital," Williams
said in a statement. "This represents a major disconnect between care in the
hospital and outside it. We've got to do better."
The readmission rates rise with time: 19.6 percent of patients were readmitted
within 30 days of discharge, 34 percent within 90 days and 56.1 percent within a
year.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also said that the
unplanned readmissions cost more than $17 billion in 2004, a sizable portion of
the $102.6 billion Medicare paid to hospitals.
When patients are readmitted after surgery, 70 percent of them suffer from a
medical problem such as a urinary tract infection or pneumonia.
"There is also the emotional toll on patients," Williams said. "They suffer when
they must be rehospitalized after the initial difficult experience of
hospitalization."
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Copyright 2009 by United Press International