Are reductions in hospital 30-day readmission rates associated with changes in hospital 30-day mortality rates after discharge in Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized for heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, or pneumonia?
Reducing hospital 30-day readmissions does not appear to increase post-discharge mortality, and is instead weakly correlated with reduced mortality.
Among Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries hospitalized for heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, or pneumonia, reductions in hospital 30-day readmission rates were weakly but significantly correlated with reductions in hospital 30-day mortality rates after discharge. These findings do not support increasing postdischarge mortality related to reducing hospital readmissions.
Dharmarajan et al. (Tue,) studied this question.