Emergency department visits following discharge: Implications for healthcare management

Thirty-day readmission rate of COVID-19 patients discharged from a tertiary care university hospital in Turkey: an observational, single-center study

Background

The 30-day readmission rate is an important indicator of patient safety and hospital’s quality performance. In this study, we aimed to find out the 30-day readmission rate of mild and moderate severity COVID-19 patients discharged from a tertiary care university hospital and to demonstrate the possible factors associated with readmission.

Methods

This is an observational, single-center study. Epidemiological and clinical data of patients who were hospitalized with a diagnosis of COVID-19 were retrieved from a research database where patient information was recorded prospectively. Readmission data was sought from the hospital information management system and National Health Record System to detect if the patients were readmitted to any hospital within 30 days of discharge. Adult patients (≥18 years-old) hospitalized in COVID-19 wards with a diagnosis of mild or moderate COVID-19 between March 20, 2020 (when the first case was admitted to our hospital), and April 26, 2020 were included.

Results

From March 26 to May 1, there were 154 mild or moderate severity (non-critical) COVID-19 patients discharged from COVID-19 wards, of which 11 (7.1%) were readmitted The median time of readmission was 8.1 days (IQR=5.2). Two patients (18.1%) were categorized to have mild disease and the remaining 9 (81.9%) as moderate disease. Two patients who were over 65 years of age and had metastatic cancers and hypertension developed sepsis and died in the hospital during the readmission episode. Malignancy (18.7% vs 2.1%, P = 0.04) and hypertension (45.5% vs 14%, P = 0.02) were more common in those who were readmitted.

Conclusions

This is one of the first studies to report on 30-day readmission rate of COVID-19 in the literature. More comprehensive studies are needed to reveal the causes and predictors of COVID-19 readmissions.