Early Hospital Readmission: An indicator of hospital quality of care assessment

Authors

  • Flávia Kessler Borges Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre
  • Fernando Soliman Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
  • Daniela Oliveira Pires Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
  • Renato Seligman Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre

Keywords:

Reinternação hospitalar, Indicador, Qualidade

Abstract

Background: Early hospital readmission is an indicator of hospital quality of care. It is important to assess readmission risk factors, as it imposes additional burden on patients, families and high cost to healthcare system. Objectives: To define the characteristics of patients with early readmission to a university hospital. Methods: Selection of all patients readmitted in 7 days after hospital discharge from January to March of 2007. Results: All 5363 patients admitted were assessed. 135 (3%) adults and 71 (7%) children were readmitted in 7 days. Most of them were males, with previous admission in the last 3 months with the same diagnosis. Specialities with most common readmission tax in adults were internal medicine (9.7%), hematology (9%), cardiology (5.7%), adult emergency (5.5%), gastroenterology (5%) and general surgery (2.2%). Main causes of adult readmissions were cardiovascular disease (20), gastrointestinal disease (18), respiratory disease (17), cancer (17) and urinary tract disease (13).  Most common co-morbidities in adults were hypertension (39%), diabetes (24%), smoke (18.5%), renal failure (17%), ischemic heart disease (16%), chronic obstructive lung disease (16%) and heart failure (15%). Pediatric readmissions were mainly on oncology population (42.4%). Adults had co-morbidities rate of 2.7. Thirteen percent of children and 5 % of adults died during readmission. Conclusions: Patients characteristics may identify those at higher risk of early readmission. Most of them had multiple medical co-morbidities or had oncologic diagnosis. These findings reflect the chronic condition of patients admitted to our institution.

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Author Biographies

Flávia Kessler Borges, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre

Médica contratada do Serviço de Medicina Interna do Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre

Fernando Soliman, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Médico formado pela Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Daniela Oliveira Pires, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Médica formada pela Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Renato Seligman, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre

Adjunto da Vice-Presidência Médica do Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre

Published

2009-01-14

How to Cite

1.
Borges FK, Soliman F, Pires DO, Seligman R. Early Hospital Readmission: An indicator of hospital quality of care assessment. Clin Biomed Res [Internet]. 2009 Jan. 14 [cited 2025 May 9];28(3). Available from: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/hcpa/article/view/5120

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