Study: Hospital readmissions sometimes save lives

Editor's Note

Analyzing data on nearly 4,500 acute-care facilities, Johns Hopkins researchers found that the hospitals with the highest rates of readmissions were more likely to show better mortality scores.

Data on mortality and hospital readmissions used by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) sometime fail to tell the whole story, the authors say.

High readmission rates could stem from the legitimate need to care for chronically ill patients in high-intensity settings. Applying equal weight to readmission and mortality unfairly skews the data against hospitals, they say.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Newswise - A group of Johns Hopkins physicians and researchers today published an article in the Journal of Hospital Medicine suggesting that data on mortality and hospital readmission used by the United States Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) suggest a potentially problematic relationship. Daniel J.