Impact on hospital ranking of basing readmission measures on a composite endpoint of death or readmission versus readmissions alone

摘要

BackgroundReadmission penalties are central to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) efforts to improve patient outcomes and reduce health care spending. However, many clinicians believe that readmission metrics may unfairly penalize low-mortality hospitals because mortality and readmission are competing risks. The objective of this study is to compare hospital ranking based on a composite outcome of death or readmission versus readmission alone.