Since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid toughened their stance on unnecessary hospital readmissions, they began by penalizing institutions with reduced Medicare reimbursements if they fail to reduce their readmission rates for heart attacks, congestive heart failure and pneumonia.
In an effort to draw attention to this problem, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has funded a report by Dartmouth Atlas Project highlighting readmissions from 2010-2011 and released an interactive map contrasting the readmission rates for surgery and other medical stays region by region in 2010. It not only shows the disparity of the numbers across the country, but also compares readmission after surgery with readmission for other medical procedures.
The regions with the lowest readmission rates also had relatively rural population. Ogden, Utah, for example, had the lowest rate of medical readmissions (11.4 percent) and Bend, Oregon had a readmission rate of 7.6 percent for surgical re-admissions. The Bronx in New York came out ahead in both categories with 18.1 percent for medical readmissions and 18.3 percent for surgery.
The national average for medical readmissions was 15.9 percent and for surgical readmissions it was 12.4 percent.
[Photo from from Flickr user Cayusa]
