Patient care is the primary goal of all hospitals. This seems to be an obvious statement, but many people do not know that this extends even when the patient is sent home or to a post-acute care facility. Many people believe that once a patient steps foot outside the hospital, they are no longer important to the hospital. This is false. Making sure that patients do not return with the same condition (barring follow ups visits) is very important to the hospitals. Hospital readmission rates have been proposed as an important indicator of quality of care (Friedman and Basu, 2004; Miller, 2007) because they may result from actions taken or omitted during the initial hospital stay. A readmission may result from incomplete treatment or poor care of the underlying problem, or may reflect poor coordination of services at the time of discharge and afterwards, such as incomplete discharge planning and/ or inadequate access to care (Halfon et al., 2006; Kripalani et al., 2007).The importance of this study is, at its core, to improve patient care. Studies have shown that patients discharged earlier in the day from hospitals are less likely to return with the same condition within 30 days. This project is designed to provide date driven analysis of the barriers to "discharges before 11" that will, in turn, assist in developing a solution that reduces preventable readmissions and improves emergency department (ED) throughput. These in turn will improve patient care and satisfaction which is a goal of any hospital.
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