Hospital Readmission in Patients Treated With Tiered-Therapy Implantable Defibrillators

BACKGROUND: We wished to determine the incidence, reasons, costs, and predictors of cardiac-related hospital readmission in patients with tiered-therapy implantable defibrillators. Hospital readmission in patients with defibrillators reduces their quality of life and increases the cost associated with such therapy. METHODS AND RESULTS: We retrospectively studied 65 consecutive local patients (median age, 67 years; median ejection fraction, 0. 34) who underwent tiered-therapy defibrillator implantation at this institution. Patients were followed for a median of 19 months (interquartile range, 10 to 27 months). The cause, duration, costs, and predictors of cardiac-related rehospitalizations were analyzed. There were 76 cardiac admissions for 34 patients. The rate of cardiac-related hospital readmission was 0. 72 per patient-year of follow-up. Arrhythmia-related admissions accounted for 43 of such admissions in 24 patients. Actuarial freedom from cardiac-related admissions was 0. 57 and 0. 40 at 1 and 2 years, respectively. The median length of stay for hospital readmissions was 5 days (interquartile range, 3 to 8 days). The median cost per admission was 5842 (interquartile range, 3549 to 12 170). The time to first readmission and the total rehospitalization time per year of follow-up were associated with a poor preimplant New York Heart Association functional class. Readmission for cardiac arrhythmias was not predicted by clinical parameters. CONCLUSIONS: Rehospitalization for cardiac reasons is common in patients receiving implantable defibrillators and is responsible for substantial resource consumption. The need for readmission for arrhythmia-related reasons cannot be predicted by clinical parameters at the time of device implantation.