One in 11 coronavirus patients discharged from a hospital is readmitted within two months, suggesting long-lasting effects of the infection, CDC report warns
- Researchers looked at data for patients with COVID-19 hospitalized between March 2020 and July 2020
- One in 11 patients – or 9% – were readmitted to the same hospital within two months of being discharged, and 1.6% were readmitted more than once
- Patients discharged to a nursing home were twice as likely to be readmitted as those discharged to their own homes
- Those who had been hospitalized for a different reason three months prior to their COVID-19 hospitalization were three times more likely to be readmitted
Nearly 10 percent of COVID-19 patients discharged from a hospital are readmitted within two months, a new report finds.
Patients who were above age 65 and had been discharged to a nursing home were twice as likely to need further hospital care than those who were sent home, revealed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday.
Additionally, being in the hospital three months prior to their hospitalization for the coronavirus nearly tripled their odds of being readmitted.
The team says the findings provide evidence that patients might experience potential long-lasting health complications after being ill with COVID-19 that may require ongoing care.
A new CDC report found that 9% of COVID-19 patients were readmitted to the same hospital within two months of being discharged and 1.6% of patients were readmitted more than once. Pictured: Coronavirus patients are taken into to the Wakefield Campus of the Montefiore Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, April 6
For the report, the team looked at electronic health records and administrative data from the Premier Healthcare Database, which includes records from 865 hospitals.
Researchers looked at patterns of hospital discharge and readmission for COVID-19 between March 2020 and July 2020.
Of more than 126,000 patients that were admitted to the hospital for the virus, 15 percent died during their initial stay.
Among the more than 106,000 surviving patients, nine percent were readmitted to the same hospital within two months of being discharged.
For about 1.6 percent of patients, they were readmitted to the hospital more than once.
The median interval from being discharged to first readmission was about eight days, with fewer than 0.1 percent dying during after being readmitted.
Next, researchers looked at specific demographic and clinical characteristics of patients that might raise their risk of readmission.
Readmission was the most common among patients discharged to a skilled nursing facility at 15 percent.
That’s higher than the 12 percent readmitted after being discharged with home health organization support and more than double the seven percent readmitted following discharge to self-care.
Additionally, twice as many adults between ages 65 and 74 were readmitted to the hospital as were those between ages 18 and 39 and three times as many as patients from ages 40 to 54.
Odds of being readmitted were 1.6 times higher if the patient had chronic kidney disease or heart failure and 1.4 times higher for those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Additionally, the odds of readmission for patients who had been hospitalized within three months prior to their COVID-19 hospitalization were 2.6 times greater.
Moreover, Caucasian patients were more likely to be readmitted than were those of other racial group.
White patients were 1.7 times more likely than Hispanics and 2.8 times more likely than African-Americans to be readmitted.
‘After hospitalization for COVID-19, the most common primary discharge diagnoses from hospital readmission were diseases of the circulatory, digestive, or respiratory systems,’ the authors wrote.
‘Future work will examine the detailed diagnoses recorded during readmissions to better understand COVID-19 sequelae or health conditions that require extended or ongoing care.’
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