Table 4.

Quality assessment of included studies

Author	Patients Included	No. of Readmissions Assessed	Sampling Frame	Identification and Classification of Index Hospitalization	Identification and Classification of Readmission	Includes All Readmissions
Hedlund (22)	95	21	Single hospital unit	Prospective clinical	Claims	Yes
Metersky (29)	34,500	>1,000	Connecticut Medicare beneficiaries	Claims	Claims	Yes
Bohannon (30)	892	150	Single hospital	Claims	Claims	No
Polić-Vizintin (31)	180	<100	7 Hospitals	Claims	Claims	Yes
Jasti (23)	577	70	7 Hospitals	Prospective clinical	Retrospective clinical	Yes
Johnstone (24)	2,950	410	6 Hospitals	Prospective clinical	Claims	Yes
Capelastegui (25)	1,117	81	Single hospital	Prospective clinical	Retrospective clinical	Yes
Jencks (12)	—	>1,000	All FFS Medicare beneficiaries	Claims	Claims	Yes
Adamuz (26)	828	72	Single hospital	Prospective clinical	Retrospective clinical	Yes
Aliberti (27)	464	63	Single hospital	Retrospective clinical	Retrospective clinical	Yes
Dharmarajan (13)	1,168,624	214,239	Elderly FFS Medicare beneficiaries	Claims	Claims	Yes
Shorr (28)	771	149	Single hospital	Retrospective clinical	Retrospective clinical	Yes
HCUP (NIS, patients 18+ yr in 2009–2011) (19)	2,544,265	427,0041	20% Stratified sample of U.S. community hospitals	Claims	Claims	Yes

Definition of abbreviations: FFS = fee for service; HCUP = Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project; NIS = Nationwide Inpatient Sample.