Measuring hospital quality using pediatric readmission and revisit rates

Naomi S. Bardach, Eric Vittinghoff, Renée Asteria-Peñaloza, Jeffrey D. Edwards, Jinoos Yazdany, Henry C. Lee, W. John Boscardin, Michael D. Cabana, R. Adams Dudley

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

109 Scopus citations

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To assess variation among hospitals on pediatric readmission and revisit rates and to determine the number of high- and low-performing hospitals. METHODS: In a retrospective analysis using the State Inpatient and Emergency Department Databases from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project with revisit linkages available, we identified pediatric (ages 1-20 years) visits with 1 of 7 common inpatient pediatric conditions (asthma, dehydration, pneumonia, appendicitis, skin infections, mood disorders, and epilepsy). For each condition, we calculated rates of all-cause readmissions and rates of revisits (readmission or presentation to the emergency department) within 30 and 60 days of discharge. We used mixed logistic models to estimate hospital-level riskstandardized 30-day revisit rates and to identify hospitals that had performance statistically different from the group mean. RESULTS: Thirty-day readmission rates were low (<10.0%) for all conditions. Thirty-day rates of revisit to the inpatient or emergency department setting ranged from 6.2% (appendicitis) to 11.0% (mood disorders). Study hospitals (n = 958) had low condition-specific visit volumes (37.0%-82.8% of hospitals had <25 visits). The only condition with >1% of hospitals labeled as different from the mean on 30-day risk-standardized revisit rates was mood disorders (4.2% of hospitals [n = 15], range of hospital performance 6.3%-15.9%). CONCLUSIONS: We found that when comparing hospitals' performances to the average, few hospitals that care for children are identified as high- or low-performers for revisits, even for common pediatric diagnoses, likely due to low hospital volumes. This limits the usefulness of condition-specific readmission or revisit measures in pediatric quality measurement.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)429-436
Number of pages8
JournalPediatrics
Volume132
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Child health research
  • Delivery of care
  • Health policy
  • Hospital performance variation
  • Quality measurement
  • Readmission rates

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Measuring hospital quality using pediatric readmission and revisit rates'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this