Patients discharged from skilled nursing facilities with functional limitations are at greater risk of being readmitted to a hospital with potentially preventable problems.
The most dependent patients were most likely to be readmitted with septicemia, while the least dependent patients came back most often with congestive heart failure, found a study published by AMDA, The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.
Researchers at the Division of Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Texas Medical Branch examined MDS data from nearly 700,000 Medicare patients discharged between July 2013 and July 2014. More than half the patients were women, with an average age of 81.
Researchers arranged the patients by risk categories related to self-care, mobility and cognition criteria. The reported issues with self-care, cognition, urinary tract or kidney infection, bacterial pneumonia and renal failure all increased potential readmissions.
Researchers said more studies are needed to determine whether improving functional status before discharge could prevent readmissions among this vulnerable population.
From the March 01, 2018 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
