Figure. Aggregate Number of Additional Bed-Days Needed Across Index Hospitalizations to Avoid 1 Pediatric Hospital Readmission Among US Children.

After generating the model associating hospital-level adjusted mean length of stay (LOS) with adjusted readmission rate for each All Patient Refined Diagnosis Related Group (APR-DRG), β coefficients from the regression equation were used to estimate the number of additional bed-days needed to avoid 1 pediatric hospital readmission. The β coefficient provided an estimate for the change in the readmission rate for a 1-day increase in mean LOS. Thus, the change in the number of readmissions was estimated as follows: (No. of Observed Readmissions) − (Observed Readmission Rate + β) × No. of Cases. Then the number of days needed to avoid 1 readmission was estimated as follows: (No. of Additional Days)/(Change in the No. of Readmissions), where the number of additional days was equal to the number of cases because 1 day was added to the LOS of each case. Additional costs associated with additional hospital bed-days were determined by multiplying the number of days needed to avoid 1 readmission by the median cost per day for the APR-DRG. For example, for asthma, 81.8 additional days were required to prevent 1 readmission, with a cost per day of $2502 (or $204 638 for 81.8 additional bed-days).