Background: The clinical course of COVID-19 includes multiple disease phases. Data describing post-hospital discharge outcomes may provide insight into disease course. Studies describing post-hospitalization outcomes of adults following COVID-19 infection are limited to electronic medical record review, which may underestimate the incidence of outcomes.
Objective: To determine 30-day post-hospitalization outcomes following COVID-19 infection.
Design: Retrospective cohort study SETTING: Quaternary referral hospital and community hospital in New York City.
Participants: COVID-19 infected patients discharged alive from the emergency department (ED) or hospital between March 3 and May 15, 2020.
Measurement: Outcomes included return to an ED, re-hospitalization, and mortality within 30 days of hospital discharge.
Results: Thirty-day follow-up data were successfully collected on 94.6% of eligible patients. Among 1344 patients, 16.5% returned to an ED, 9.8% were re-hospitalized, and 2.4% died. Among patients who returned to the ED, 50.0% (108/216) went to a different hospital from the hospital of the index presentation, and 61.1% (132/216) of those who returned were re-hospitalized. In Cox models adjusted for variables selected using the lasso method, age (HR 1.01 per year [95% CI 1.00-1.02]), diabetes (1.54 [1.06-2.23]), and the need for inpatient dialysis (3.78 [2.23-6.43]) during the index presentation were independently associated with a higher re-hospitalization rate. Older age (HR 1.08 [1.05-1.11]) and Asian race (2.89 [1.27-6.61]) were significantly associated with mortality.
Conclusions: Among patients discharged alive following their index presentation for COVID-19, risk for returning to a hospital within 30 days of discharge was substantial. These patients merit close post-discharge follow-up to optimize outcomes.
Keywords: COVID-19; discharge; mortality; re-admission.
© 2021. Society of General Internal Medicine.