Safety-net Hospitals Face More Barriers Yet Use Fewer Strategies to Reduce Readmissions.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

US hospitals that care for vulnerable populations, "safety-net hospitals" (SNHs), are more likely to incur penalties under the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, which penalizes hospitals with higher-than-expected readmissions. Understanding whether SNHs face unique barriers to reducing readmissions or whether they underuse readmission-prevention strategies is important.

Design

We surveyed leadership at 1600 US acute care hospitals, of whom 980 participated, between June 2013 and January 2014. Responses on 28 questions on readmission-related barriers and strategies were compared between SNHs and non-SNHs, adjusting for nonresponse and sampling strategy. We further compared responses between high-performing SNHs and low-performing SNHs.

Results

We achie

SUBMITTER: Figueroa JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5309202 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature