Factors Associated With 30-Day Hospital Readmission After Hysterectomy

OBJECTIVE: To analyze factors associated with 30-day readmission among women who underwent hysterectomy for uterine cancer and benign indications. METHODS: We used the National Surgical Quality Improvement Project database to perform a cohort study of women who underwent hysterectomy from 2011 to 2012. Patients were stratified by surgical indication (uterine cancer or benign indications). Multivariable logistic regression models were constructed to determine factors associated with 30-day readmission. Model fit statistics were used to evaluate the importance of demographic factors, preoperative comorbidities, and postoperative complications on readmission. RESULTS: The rate of 30-day readmission was 6.1% among 4,725 women with uterine cancer and 3.4% after hysterectomy for benign gynecologic disease in 36,471 patients. In a series of multivariable models, postoperative complications including wound complications, infections, and pulmonary emboli and myocardial infarctions were the factors most strongly associated with readmission. Compared with women without a complication, complications increased the readmission rate from 2.5 to 20.3% for women with uterine cancer and from 1.5 to 15.1% for those without cancer. Among women with uterine cancer, postoperative complications explained 34.3% of the variance in readmission compared with 5.9% for demographic factors and 2.2% for preoperative comorbidities. For patients with benign diseases, complications accounted for 32.1%, preoperative conditions 1.2%, and demographic factors 2.5% of the variance in readmission. CONCLUSION: Efforts to reduce readmission should be directed at initiatives to reduce complications and improve the care of women who experience a complication.