Limits of Readmission Rates in Measuring Hospital Quality Suggest the Need for Added Metrics
Under the Affordable Care Act and other health reform initiatives, the federal government has begun implementing policies to encourage hospitals to reduce preventable readmissions of patients. Each of the policies holds hospitals primarily accountable for readmissions and assesses performance using risk-standardized readmission rates. Commonwealth Fund–supported researchers examined the change in readmission rates over a two-year period and the relationship between these rates and other commonly used measures of hospital quality.
