Why the study?
What are the prevalence, reasons, and risk factors for hospital readmissions among home health care patients?
What are the prevalence, reasons, and risk factors for hospital readmissions among home health care patients?
Current evidence on hospital readmissions from home health care is limited by methodological flaws and variability, highlighting the need for better national data sources and advanced statistical modeling.
Variability in HHC readmission rates and risks limits synthesis; leaves open the need for standardized definitions and prospective studies.
Preventing hospital readmissions is one of the top priorities of the U.S. health care system. This systematic review examined the current evidence about hospital readmissions from home health care (HHC). Literature was searched in PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science. Eligible studies were reviewed and evaluated using a validated tool. Eighteen articles were reviewed. Reported readmission rates and risk factors varied dramatically between studies. Reasons for readmissions were understudied. Findings of reviewed studies were limited by small sample sizes, single data source, and methodological flaws. Future studies should use multiple national data sources across patients’ care spectrum and advanced statistical models to identify who among HHC patients are most likely to be readmitted to hospital and for what reason.
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Ma et al. (2017) studied this question.
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