Northeast Georgia Medical Center Readmissions Back to the Index Hospital is 24% Higher than the State Average
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By: Emily Carpintero Dec. 04, 2017
Dexur's recent analysis of CMS Medicare claims data for the time period of January 2016 through December 2016 showed that Northeast Georgia Medical Center surpassed the national and state average rate of readmissions back to same hospital by 23.83% and 24.7%, respectively. Dexur analyzed patients readmitted within 30-days who were discharged from the original hospital and their readmissions either to the same (index) hospital or a different hospital. 30-day readmissions is a commonly used metric by healthcare professionals to evaluate quality of care at initial admission; same hospital readmission rates can be used to understand why patients are using index or non-index hospitals when complications arise. Below is a graph highlighting the highest readmitted categories in this hospital and their percentage of readmission to the same hospital compare to the state and national averages.
Northeast Georgia Medical Center’s Rate of Readmission to Same Hospital
Looking at the table below, the three categories at Northeast Georgia Medical Center with the highest percent of readmission back to the index hospital were oncology and hematology, orthopedics and cardiovascular. The oncology and hematology department saw nearly 90% of readmissions return to them; this is nearly 22% more than the state average and over 20% more than the national average. The orthopedics department had a total 151 30-day readmissions, over 80% of these readmissions returned to the same hospital; this is significantly higher than the state and national average by over 35% and over 36%, respectively. The cardiovascular department had 463 30-day readmissions and over 83% returned to the same hospital; this exceeds the state and national averages by over 25%.
| Category | % of Readmissions Back To Same Hospitals | Total 30-Day Readmissions | Georgia’s % of Readmissions Back To Same Hospitals | National % of Readmissions Back To Same Hospitals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All-Inpatient | 78.78% | 2,276 | 54.08% | 54.95% |
| Oncology & Hematology | 89.02% | 82 | 67.25% | 68.54% |
| Orthopedics | 84.11% | 151 | 48.98% | 47.92% |
| Cardiovascular | 83.37% | 463 | 57.9% | 57.64% |
Northeast Georgia Medical Center is a part of a non-profit health system. They have been recognized as the #1 hospital for heart-related admissions in Georgia and are in the top 10% of hospitals in the nation for cancer care. They have also been full accredited by DNV Healthcare which includes high standards for the care of Medicare patients including compliance requirements for reimbursement and the implementation of ISO 9001 Quality Management System. ISO 9001 is recognized by healthcare professionals as an indicator for continued quality improvement. These recognitions and accreditations correlate with Dexur’s data on their high rate of Medicare inpatient readmissions to the same hospital.
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- Data regarding, Total Medicare inpatient discharges and 30-day readmissions and percentage of readmissions to same hospital for all categories of Northeast Georgia Medical Center, Georgia state and the U.S.
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