Study: Sepsis Causes More Unplanned Readmissions than CMS’s Tracked Conditions
January 27, 2017 | Aging Services Risk Management
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Sepsis causes more hospital readmissions than any of the four conditions tracked by the federal government to measure quality, according to a January 22, 2017, research letter published in JAMA. Adding sepsis as one of the tracked conditions in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Readmission Reduction Program "may lead to development of new interventions to reduce unplanned readmissions and associated costs," the authors said. At the time of the study, CMS tracked readmission for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and pneumonia. To see whether sepsis caused more readmissions than the other conditions, the authors analyzed data from the 2013 Nationwide Readmissions Database, which represents discharge data for 49% of the U.S. population.