TY - JOUR
T1 - Adding socioeconomic data to hospital readmissions calculations may produce more useful results
AU - Nagasako, Elna M.
AU - Reidhead, Mat
AU - Waterman, Brian
AU - Claiborne Dunagan, W.
PY - 2014/5
Y1 - 2014/5
N2 - To better understand the degree to which risk-standardized thirty-day readmission rates may be influenced by social factors, we compared results for hospitals in Missouri under two types of models. The first type of model is currently used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for public reporting of condition-specific hospital readmission rates of Medicare patients. The second type of model is an "enriched" version of the first type of model with census tract-level socioeconomic data, such as poverty rate, educational attainment, and housing vacancy rate. We found that the inclusion of these factors had a pronounced effect on calculated hospital readmission rates for patients admitted with acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia. Specifically, the models including socioeconomic data narrowed the range of observed variation in readmission rates for the above conditions, in percentage points, from 6.5 to 1.8, 14.0 to 7.4, and 7.4 to 3.7, respectively. Interestingly, the average readmission rates for the three conditions did not change significantly between the two types of models. The results of our exploratory analysis suggest that further work to characterize and report the effects of socioeconomic factors on standardized readmission measures may assist efforts to improve care quality and deliver more equitable care on the part of hospitals, payers, and other stakeholders.
AB - To better understand the degree to which risk-standardized thirty-day readmission rates may be influenced by social factors, we compared results for hospitals in Missouri under two types of models. The first type of model is currently used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for public reporting of condition-specific hospital readmission rates of Medicare patients. The second type of model is an "enriched" version of the first type of model with census tract-level socioeconomic data, such as poverty rate, educational attainment, and housing vacancy rate. We found that the inclusion of these factors had a pronounced effect on calculated hospital readmission rates for patients admitted with acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia. Specifically, the models including socioeconomic data narrowed the range of observed variation in readmission rates for the above conditions, in percentage points, from 6.5 to 1.8, 14.0 to 7.4, and 7.4 to 3.7, respectively. Interestingly, the average readmission rates for the three conditions did not change significantly between the two types of models. The results of our exploratory analysis suggest that further work to characterize and report the effects of socioeconomic factors on standardized readmission measures may assist efforts to improve care quality and deliver more equitable care on the part of hospitals, payers, and other stakeholders.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84899880729&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1377/hlthaff.2013.1148
DO - 10.1377/hlthaff.2013.1148
M3 - Article
C2 - 24799575
AN - SCOPUS:84899880729
SN - 0278-2715
VL - 34
SP - 786
EP - 791
JO - Health Affairs
JF - Health Affairs
IS - 5
ER -