Center for Population Health

For the CT SIM dashboard, hospital readmissions focused on "ambulatory care sensitive conditions" (ACSCs). ACSCs are conditions for which good outpatient care can potentially prevent the need for hospitalization, or for which early intervention can prevent complications or more severe disease.

Overall

The overall hospital readmissions composite was calculated as the percentage of admissions which follow an initial hospitalization for an ambulatory care sensitive condition admission in 30 days or less for patients aged 18 years or older. ACSCs include the following: diabetes with short-term complications, diabetes with long-term complications, uncontrolled diabetes without complications, diabetes with lower-extremity amputation, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, hypertension, heart failure, dehydration, bacterial pneumonia, or urinary tract infection.

The information below presents population level results for years 2012 through 2017. In the years prior to SIM (2012 to 2015), the percent of hospital readmissions for ACSCs remained fairly stable from 16.4% in 2012 to 16.7% in 2015. In 2016, the first year of SIM implementation, the observed percent of 15.6 was a decrease of 1.1 percentage points from 2015 (16.7%). Target values were established to set annual reduction goals for the SIM implementation years (2016-2017). Since SIM implementation there has been a slight downward trend. In 2016, the observed percent was 1.0 percentage point less than the target percent and the observed value in 2017 was 0.5 percentage points less than the target percent.

Acute

The composite score of hospital readmissions for acute conditions includes: dehydration, bacterial pneumonia, or urinary tract infection.

In the years prior to SIM (2012-2015), the percent of hospital readmissions for ACSCs remained fairly stable from 13.9% in 2012 to 13.5% in 2015. In 2016, the first year of SIM implementation, the observed percentage was 13.2. The observed percentage continued to decrease to 12.5% in 2017. Since the SIM implementation, the observed percentage has been slightly less than the target percentage.

Chronic

The composite score of hospital readmissions for chronic conditions includes: diabetes with short-term complications, diabetes with long-term complications, uncontrolled diabetes without complications, diabetes with lower-extremity amputation, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, hypertension, or heart failure without a cardiac procedure.

In the years prior to SIM (2012-2015), the percent of hospital readmissions for ACSCs remained fairly stable (18.3% to 18.6%). In 2016, the first year of SIM implementation, the observed percentage of 16.9 was 1.7 percentage point less than the 2015 observed 18.6%. The target values remain stable at 18.4% for both 2016 and 2017. In the two years of CT SIM implementation, the observed percentage was slightly less than the target. In 2016, the observed percentage was 1.5 percentage points less than the target, and in 2017 the observed percentage was 0.8 percentage points below the target.

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Information Source

Prevention Quality Indicators Overview