Association of Rural and Critical Access Hospital Status With Patient Outcomes After Emergency Department Visits Among Medicare Beneficiaries.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

Rural US residents disproportionately rely on emergency departments (ED), yet little is known about patient outcomes after ED visits to rural hospitals or critical access hospitals (CAHs).

Objective

To compare 30-day outcomes after rural vs urban ED visits and in CAHs, a subset of rural hospitals.

Design, setting, and participants

This propensity-matched, retrospective cohort study used a 20% sample of national Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries from January 1, 2011, to October 31, 2015. Rural and urban ED visits were matched on demographics, patient prior use of EDs, comorbidities, and diagnoses. Thirty-day outcomes overall and stratified by 25 common ED diagnoses were evaluated, with similar analysis of CAHs vs non-CAHs. Data were analyzed from Februa

SUBMITTER: Greenwood-Ericksen M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8605483 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature