Even in retrospect many readmissions seem unpreventable, but others result from confusion about what medicines the patient should be taking, what signs might suggest that a complication is brewing, when the patient should go back to which doctor, and so on.
Medicare last month began levying financial penalties against 2,217 hospitals it says have had too many readmissions.
He adds that many readmissions may be related to patients falling through the cracks.
In contrast, manual review classified as non-preventable many readmissions that were clinically related to the index stay.
Our own research at The Mount Sinai Hospital showed that providing palliative care consultation to patients with cancer who were at high risk for readmission resulted in a stunning drop in the need for re-hospitalization.
2– 6 One intervention demonstrated a 10% drop in readmission, resulting in savings of $3.8 million by eliminating 400 readmissions and avoiding expected Medicare penalties.
Many extinctions resulted.
In many cases, readmissions are the result of adverse effects of medication therapies due to improper or non-adherence to medication regimens.
Many absurdities have resulted.
This may be due to the high cost of readmission or resulting coercion of posterior probabilities.
