Background: Black seniors have historically had higher readmission rates than white seniors, and hospitals that treat more black seniors have been disproportionately penalized the Medicare Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP). Consequently, the policy could exacerbate racial disparities. We sought to determine whether, under the HRRP, trends in 30-day post-discharge mortality differed between black and white [...]

Background: Hospital Readmission Reduction Program(HRRP) implemented by CMS as part of Affordable Care Act (ACA) applies financial penalties to hospitals that have higher-than-expected readmission rates for common conditions such as AMI, pneumonia, and HF. CMS extended this program to include COPD for the fiscal year (FY) 2015. While there has been a reduction in readmissions, [...]

Background: According to a report of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) that looked at hospital admissions in 2013, the care of hospitalized malnourished patients costs twice as much as those without malnourishment due to prolonged hospital stays and increased readmission rates. Furthermore, up to 30 to 50 percent of patients are malnourished upon [...]

Background: The simplified HOSPITAL score is an easy-to-use prediction model that accurately identifies patients at high-risk of 30-day unplanned readmission before hospital discharge. The predictors include the last available hemoglobin and sodium levels at discharge. Because an earlier stratification risk of readmission would allow more preparation time for transitional care interventions, we aimed to assess [...]

Background: Studies have shown about 2 million patients are readmitted to hospitals nationwide yearly. Data from the Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) estimate the annual cost of readmissions of Medicare patients amounts to billions of dollars annually; about half this cost may be preventable. Hospitals are working to create programs to decrease readmission [...]

Case Presentation: A 76 year-old male with a history of diverticulitis, T2DM, HTN, persistent atrial fibrillation and compensated alcoholic cirrhosis presented for recurrent gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB). He initially presented to an outside hospital six months prior for shortness of breath and found to be anemic requiring 4 units of packed red blood cells (PRBCs). Since [...]