Skip to main content
. 2013 Nov 20;347:f6571. doi: 10.1136/bmj.f6571

Table 2.

 Relation between hospital characteristics and median time to readmission after index admission to hospital for heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, or pneumonia

Hospital characteristic Coefficient for change in median time to readmission in days (95% CI)
Heart failure Acute myocardial infarction Pneumonia
30 day risk standardized readmission rate* −0.15 (−0.19 to −0.10) 0.03 (−0.05 to 0.11) −0.23 (−0.29 to −0.17)
Annual hospital volume† 0.01 (−0.03 to 0.05) −0.11 (−0.17 to −0.05) 0.07 (0.02 to 0.12)
% Medicaid‡ −0.06 (−0.12 to 0.01) −0.01 (−0.13 to 0.10) −0.07 (−0.16 to 0.01)
% African-American§ 0.11 (0.06 to 0.17) 0.04 (−0.07 to 0.14) 0.03 (−0.04 to 0.10)
Rural hospital¶ 0.10 (−0.14 to 0.34) −0.25 (−1.00 to 0.50) 0.24 (−0.00 to 0.48)
Critical access hospital −0.07 (−0.36 to 0.21) 0.45 (−1.02 to 1.92) 0.29 (0.01 to 0.56)
Teaching hospital** −0.09 (−0.21 to 0.03) −0.22 (−0.40 to −0.03) −0.15 (−0.30 to −0.01)
Safety net hospital†† 0.07 (−0.15 to 0.29) 0.05 (−0.32 to 0.42) 0.22 (−0.06 to 0.49)
Publicly owned hospital‡‡ −0.05 (−0.32 to 0.22) −0.08 (−0.55 to 0.40) −0.32 (−0.66 to 0.02)
Not for profit hospital§§ −0.02 (−0.36 to 0.21) 0.19 (−0.08 to 0.45) −0.13 (−0.32 to 0.05)

*Over three years. Coefficient for change for every SD increase in rate. For example, for heart failure readmission cohort, when rate increased by 1 SD, hospital median time to readmission decreased by 0.148 days.

†Total No of admissions for index condition 2007-09 divided by 3. Coefficient for change for every increase in annual volume for index condition by 1 SD.

‡Proportion of patients with Medicaid health insurance cared for by facility as defined with 2008 American Hospital Association data. Coefficient for change for every 1 SD increase in proportion of hospital patients that have Medicaid health insurance.

§Proportion of African-American patients cared for by facility in 2007-09. Coefficient for change every 1 SD increase in proportion of African-American hospital patients.

¶Rural v urban.

**Teaching v non-teaching hospitals

††Safety net hospitals in US provide care for high proportion of uninsured, underinsured, or Medicaid patients; we have defined safety net hospitals as public or private hospitals with annual Medicaid caseload >1 SD above their respective state’s mean private hospital Medicaid caseload.

‡‡Publicly v privately owned hospitals.

§§Not for profit v privately owned hospitals.