Hospitals in pursuit of excellence

Contemporary Evidence About Hospital Strategies for Reducing 30-Day Readmissions : A National Study

Patients hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction or congestive heart failure are more likely to require hospital readmission within 30 days of discharge. Intensive efforts are underway to reduce readmissions in these patients, spurred by federal policies that penalize hospitals with excess readmission rates. However, this survey of nearly 600 hospitals found widely varying implementation of specific strategies to decrease readmissions in these patients, despite nearly all hospitals having declared reducing AMI and CHF readmissions to be a priority. The authors acknowledge that a lack of evidence supporting strategies to reduce readmissions, as well as variability in the underlying causes of readmissions between hospitals, may have influenced which interventions were implemented at different hospitals.