REDUCING POST-BYPASS READMISSIONS
12 January 2007 - Duke University

A significant number of patients return to the hospital following their coronary bypass operations. A recent study looked at some of the factors that may contribute to these readmissions . . .

More than a half-million coronary bypass operations are performed each year in the United States. While the rate of mortality for the surgical procedure is very low, the rate of readmission within 30 days after the operation remains fairly high, about 13 percent. Robert Jones, professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Duke University Medical Center, was one of the researchers who looked at this problem in a recent study. "Most of the readmissions were related to the operation itself or to the underlying cardiac disease present before the operation. There were four common causes: infection, heart failure, rhythm disturbance or respiratory problems, that predominated and made up most of these readmissions." Jones says a number of patient risk factors, such as gender, race and age, are linked to higher readmission rates. There were physician and medical facility factors as well. "This did not relate to being sent home too quickly from the hospital. In fact, the patients with the lowest readmissions were those who left the hospital within five days." The study appeared in the Aug. 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. I'm Cabell Smith for MedMinute.

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