Objective: we investigated both individual and health care risk factors for one-year readmissions of medical patients in the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, Northeastern Italy.
Design: we conducted a retrospective cohort study based on administrative databases.
Setting and participants: the cohort was made of all the patients who were admitted for any cause to non surgical wards of any regional or extraregional hospital and discharged from 01.01.2008 to 31.12.2009, excluding one-day stays, and who were 65 years of age, residing in Friuli Venezia Giulia upon admission, and still alive one year after discharge.
Main outcome measures: we measured the frequency of one-year readmission or death and identified patient-level risk factors and Health Districts and Hospitals performing differently from the average. Multivariable logistic regression was used, accounting for data clustering.
Results: over 30% of the patients who were still alive one year after the index discharge were readmitted to hospital. Individual risk factors include age, comorbidity, cause of the index admission. Furthermore, being admitted to nursing homes or hospice after discharge is associated with increased risk of readmission. We identified an area of the region where five Districts performed worse than the average.
Conclusion: we identified groups of the elderly population at high risk of poor outcomes after hospital discharge and a source of possible disparity in post-discharge health care in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region. These results are the starting point for further inquiries and for improvement of the regional systems of health care delivery.