This Statistical Brief examines readmissions for 10 high volume surgeries and focuses on differences by the income level of the patient’s community. Low income individuals are a vulnerable population who often face problems in accessing health care and, on average, do not receive as high quality care as higher income individuals. Examining differences in readmission rates for this population provides valuable information that may be used to target efforts and research to improve post-surgical outcomes.
This Statistical Brief provides all-payer, national estimates of surgical readmissions within 30 days for any cause for the following high volume procedures: appendectomy, cesarean section (C-section), coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), abdominal and vaginal hysterectomy, percutaneous coronary angioplasty (PTCA), hip replacement, knee replacement, laminectomy (excision of intervertebral disc), spinal fusion, and treatment of fracture or dislocation of the hip and femur. To provide some context for these surgical hospitalizations, the Statistical Brief includes statistics for hospitalizations for 3 common medical conditions that typically do not involve surgery during the hospital stay.
The readmission rate is defined as a subsequent hospital admission within 30 days following an original (or index) admission that occurs between January and November 2009. Readmissions are tracked across the same or different hospitals within a 30 day period. Information is presented on the number of index stays, cost of index stays, percentage of readmissions and cost of readmissions. Differences in post-surgical readmissions are presented for patients residing in low income as compared to high income communities, as measured by the lowest and highest quartiles of median household income of the patient’s ZIP Code. Differences noted in the text are at least 10 percent.