Program to Reduce Hospital Readmission Increases Risk of Death

A program designed to reduce hospital readmissions reduced the rate of readmissions, but was found to increase the rate of death among hospitalized heart failure patients, reveals a new study.

Heart failure is the leading cause of //readmissions among Medicare patients.

Getting Heart Patients to Stay on Medication may Not Help Them Avoid Hospital Readmission
A targeted effort to ensure that high-risk heart failure patients followed their medication program did manage to improve adherence to drug regimens.

‘Scientists suggest to carefully reconsider the use of Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) for patients with heart failure.’

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The Affordable Care Act of 2010 established the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), which involved public reporting of hospitals' 30-day readmission rates for heart failure, heart attack, and pneumonia and created financial penalties for hospitals with higher readmissions.

However, incentives to reduce readmissions can potentially encourage inappropriate care strategies and may adversely affect patient outcomes.

Nearly, 115,245 fee-for-service Medicare patients from 416 hospital sites.

Study Examines Hospital Readmission Rates After Inpatient Rehabilitation
Twelve percent of Medicare patients who receive inpatient rehabilitation following discharge from acute-care hospitalization are readmitted to the hospital within 30 days after discharge from the rehabilitation centre.

January 2006 through December 2014 divided into periods before (January 1, 2006 to March 31, 2010), during (April 1, 2010 to September 30, 2012) and after HRRP penalties went into effect (October 1, 2012 to December 31, 2014).

The risk of hospital readmission or death 30 days and one year after discharge.This was an observational study.

For Reducing Avoidable Hospital Readmissions Program may Hold Promise
Financial penalties imposed on hospitals that experience excessive patient readmissions within 30 days by recent federal legislation.

In observational studies, researchers observe exposures and outcomes for patients as they occur naturally in clinical care or real life. Because researchers are not intervening for purposes of the study they cannot control natural differences that could explain study findings so they cannot prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

The author Gregg C. Fonarow, M.D., of the Ronald Reagan-UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, and Associate Editor of the Health Care Quality and Guidelines section, JAMA Cardiology, and coauthors.

Cardiologists Treating Heart Failure Patients Could Lead to Fewer Hospital Readmissions
Results of a new study reveal that hospital readmission rates can be reduced among heart failure patients if they are attended by cardiologist, and not a hospitalist.

This is an analysis of heart failure hospitalizations from hospitals participating voluntarily in a heart failure clinical registry and may not be generalizable to other hospitals.

This is a patient-level analysis of readmissions and mortality and does not directly establish the association of change in readmission rate at a given hospital with change in its mortality rate.

These findings raise concerns that the HRRP, while achieving desired reductions in readmissions, may be associated with compromised survival of patients with heart failure.

If the findings are confirmed they may require reconsideration of use of the HRRP penalties program for patients with heart failure.

Source-Eurekalert