Dartmouth Atlas: Readmissions
Some 18 percent of nonsurgical patients, the highest rate, are readmitted within a month in the New York City borough of the Bronx. Rates are nearly that high in Detroit, Lexington, Ky., and Worcester, Mass.
Yet the readmission rate in Ogden, Utah, is just 11.4 percent. Half a dozen other areas — including Salt Lake City, Muskegon, Mich., and Bloomington, Ill. — keep those rates below 13 percent.
For surgical patients, Bend, Ore., gets readmissions down to 7.6 percent.
Another reason why healthcare costs are getting out of control!
I believe that certain areas of the country just develop common practices that are an attribute of the people, local culture, provider community and other factors that are hard to detect by outside observers. For some seniors, going to the hospital is a common event. Elsewhere, people in the same physical condition may believe a hospital stay is not the way to care for this condition. Depending on the person, hospital stays may substitute for primary care, or home care or even the care that might otherwise be provided by offspring.
I believe that the high readmission rates in the U.S. can be attributed to the ‘fast-food’ culture in this country. Americans have become used to food that we wait on for less than two minutes, our favourite songs directly at our fingertips, and these surgeries are nothing more than a distracting inconvenience. People want to get back to their lives before they have even properly healed. An orthopaedic surgeon will tell us that it will take 3-6 months to fully heal, yet we want to be released from the hospital after 5 days!
If we waited a week or two to be released, I feel certain that these readmit rates would plummet.
Interesting figures. I am sure this has to do with the way the state health care laws are written, giving easier access to hospitals than in other states. I may be completely wrong, though.