All-Cause Readmissions by Payer and Age, 2008

Hospital readmissions have been identified as an important outcome measure for assessing performance of the health care system. 1,2 Reducing readmission rates and variation in those rates can be an effective strategy for improving the quality of health care while lowering the cost. Developing national or multi-state benchmarks for hospital readmissions by payer category and patient characteristics can help identify subpopulations with relatively high readmission rates for targeted improvement efforts.