Nearly four million hospital admissions in 2008, roughly one in 10, could have been avoided if acute conditions or chronic diseases that provoked hospitalization were prevented or better managed, according to a report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
The following patients had the most preventable hospital stays:
- Patients 65 and older, 60%
- Patients between age 45 and 64, 28%
- Patients between 18 and 44, 12%.
"Potentially preventable hospitalizations—in patient stays that might be avoided with the delivery of high quality outpatient treatment and disease management—serve as useful indicators of possible unmet community health needs," the report's authors, Elizabeth Stranges and Carol Stocks of AHRQ say.
Rates of chronic conditions included:
- Diabetes
- Respiratory conditions
- Circulatory conditions
Acute care conditions included:
- Dehydration
- Bacterial pneumonia
- Urinary tract infections.
"By measuring the frequency of such hospitalizations among patient subpopulations, policymakers and providers can identify those communities most in need of improvements in outpatient care as well as the conditions for which care is most needed."
Findings in the report include the following:
- Rural hospitals had nearly double the rate of preventable admissions among patients with acute conditions than urban hospitals, 7% of rural stays versus 3.4% of urban hospital stays. Potentially preventable chronic conditions accounted for 9.2% of stays in urban hospitals but 15.9% in rural ones.
- People who live in low-income communities were more likely to be admitted for a preventable condition than people who live in wealthier communities.
- Males were more likely than females to be hospitalized for a chronic preventable condition than women, but less likely than women to be hospitalized for a potentially preventable acute care condition.
- Nearly one in 10 admissions of people who were uninsured were for potentially preventable conditions, compared to 5.4% for people with private insurance or Medicare coverage.
The report comes from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, a federal database that includes statistics from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, which includes hospital inpatient stay information. It represents non-Federal, non-rehabilitation hospitals in 44 states.