Risk factors for potentially avoidable readmissions due to end-of-life care issues

Donzé, Jacques; Lipsitz, Stuart; Schnipper, Jeffrey L (2014). Risk factors for potentially avoidable readmissions due to end-of-life care issues. Journal of Hospital Medicine, 9(5), pp. 310-314. Wiley 10.1002/jhm.2173

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BACKGROUND

Repeated hospitalizations are frequent toward the end of life, where each admission should be an opportunity to initiate advance-care planning to high-risk patients.

OBJECTIVE

To identify the risk factors for having a 30-day potentially avoidable readmission due to end-of-life care issues among all medical patients.

DESIGN

Nested case-control study.

SETTING/PATIENTS

All 10,275 consecutive discharges from any medical service of an academic tertiary medical center in Boston, Massachusetts between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010.

MEASUREMENTS

A random sample of all the potentially avoidable 30-day readmissions was independently reviewed by 9 trained physicians to identify the ones due to end-of-life issues.

RESULTS

Among 534, 30-day potentially avoidable readmission cases reviewed, 80 (15%) were due to an end-of-life care issue. In multivariable analysis, the following risk factors were significantly associated with a 30-day potentially avoidable readmission due to end-of-life care issues: number of admissions in the previous 12 months (odds ratio [OR]: 1.10 per admission, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.02-1.20), neoplasm (OR: 5.60, 95% CI: 2.85-10.98), opiate medications at discharge (OR: 2.29, 95% CI: 1.29-4.07), Elixhauser comorbidity index (OR: 1.16 per 5-point increase, 95% CI: 1.10-1.22). The discrimination of the model (C statistic) was 0.85.

CONCLUSIONS

In a medical population, we identified 4 main risk factors that were significantly associated with 30-day potentially avoidable readmission due to end-of-life care issues, producing a model with very good to excellent discrimination. Patients with these risk factors might benefit from palliative care consultation prior to discharge in order to improve end-of-life care and possibly reduce unnecessary rehospitalizations.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of General Internal Medicine (DAIM) > Clinic of General Internal Medicine 04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of General Internal Medicine (DAIM) > Clinic of General Internal Medicine > Centre of Competence for General Internal Medicine
UniBE Contributor:	Donzé, Jacques
Subjects:	600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health
ISSN:	1553-5606
Publisher:	Wiley
Language:	English
Submitter:	Patricia Rajaonina
Date Deposited:	02 Apr 2015 15:50
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 14:44
Publisher DOI:	10.1002/jhm.2173
PubMed ID:	24532224
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/66054