Background: Although hospital readmissions are being adopted as a quality measure after total hip or knee arthroplasty, they may fail accurately capture the patient's postdischarge experience.
Methods: We studied 272,853 discharges from 517 hospitals to determine hospital emergency department (ED) visit and readmission rates.
Results: The hospital-level, 30-day, risk-standardized ED visit (median = 5.6% [2.4%-13.7%]) and hospital readmission (5.0% [2.6%-9.2%]) rates were similar and varied widely. A hospital's risk-standardized ED visit rate did not correlate with its readmission rate (r = -0.03, P = .50). If ED visits were included in a broader "readmission" measure, 246 (47.6%) hospitals would change perceived performance groups.
Conclusion: Including ED visits in a broader, hospital-based, acute care measure may be warranted to better describe postdischarge health care utilization.
Keywords: emergency department visits; hospital readmission; quality measurement; total hip arthroplasty; total knee arthroplasty.
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