Physician Perspectives on Readmission

Excerpt

We agree with Dr. Schattner that although patient-related factors were the most commonly endorsed factors contributing to the readmission by physicians in our study,1 this finding could at least partially reflect the inherent bias towards assigning fault to others. We note this possibility in our original paper, and agree that it almost certainly influenced physician responses. The degree to which this impacted physician judgment in our study is uncertain. However, even if we assume that such bias artificially inflated the estimation of the impact of “Patient Understanding and Ability to Self-Manage” on readmission by 100%, such that the true prevalence as a contributor to readmission was 27% rather than 54% as demonstrated in our study, this set of factors would still have been endorsed with almost identical frequency to the next most commonly endorsed set of contributing factors, “Continuity of Care and Provider Communication,” which was endorsed by 28% of physicians overall. Additionally, as we noted, a recent high-quality systematic review concluded that strategies supporting patient capacity for self-care in their transition from hospital to home were more effective than other interventions at preventing readmissions.2 …