Association Between Early Outpatient Visits and Readmissions After Ischemic Stroke.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Reducing hospital readmission is an important goal to optimize poststroke care and reduce costs. Early outpatient follow-up may represent one important strategy to reduce readmissions. We examined the association between time to first outpatient contact and readmission to inform postdischarge transitions.

Methods and results

We performed a retrospective cohort study of all Medicare fee-for-service patients discharged home after an acute ischemic stroke in 2012 identified by the InternationalClassification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes. Our primary predictor variable was whether patients had a primary care or neurology visit within 30 days of discharge. Our primary outcome variable was all-cause 30-day hospital readmission. We used

SUBMITTER: Terman SW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5901901 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature