The Agency for Healthcare Reseach and Quality (AHRQ), recently published a study examining hospital admission patterns. The study indicates that a significant percentage of admits could have been eliminated if the patient had received appropriate care earlier.
It will be no surprise to faithful readers that there is significant variation across geography, with rates highest in the west. AHRQ theorizes that this is due at least in part to the greater distances people in rural areas have to travel to seek care; thus preventing them from receiving care earlier in the disease process.
Poverty, rural locations, and diagnosis are also key variables influencing the “avoidable admit” rate. There was much more variation for chronic than for acute conditions:
“Among the 10 chronic conditions, differences in admission rates between the lowest and highest income communities range from 76 to 278 percent.”
The report notes significant cost implications –
“Potentially preventable hospitalizations are a significant issue with regard to both quality and cost. During the year 2000, nearly 5 million admissions to U.S. hospitals involved treatment for 1 or more of these conditions; the resulting cost was more than $26.5 billion.1 While some hospitalizations were likely inevitable, many might have been prevented if individuals had received high quality primary and preventive care. Identifying and reducing such avoidable hospitalizations could help alleviate the economic burden placed on the U.S. health care system. Assuming an average cost of $5,300 per admission, even a 5 percent decrease in the rate of potentially avoidable hospitalizations could result in a cost savings of more than $1.3 billion.”
Dec
20