Factors linked to pediatric surgical readmissions

Editor's Note

Patient and hospital factors were associated with readmissions after pediatric surgical procedures in this study.

Factors associated with readmissions included:

• patients with an emergency department visit within about 1 year before surgery
• American Society of Anesthesiologists Class IV or greater
• Hispanic ethnicity
• late-day or holiday/weekend discharges.

Most factors do not appear to be modifiable, the authors say, but day and time of discharge is modifiable and should be targeted for improvement.

Unplanned readmissions are costly to family satisfaction and negatively associated with quality of care. We hypothesized that patient, operative, and hospital factors would be associated with pediatric readmission.