Patient and Hospital Characteristics
Data collected on this population of patients included a comprehensive list of diagnoses and co- morbidities at readmission as well as demographic, clinical, and hospital data. Hospital variables included size of the facility based on number of beds, teaching designation, and location within rural or metropolitan communities. Demographic data included the age and sex of patients.
Clinical data consisted of length of stay on index admission, primary expected payer, and final disposition.
A scoring system was devised based on factors that were found to be influential on readmission. This scoring system was applied to the 2016 NRD and was validated with a cohort of LAAC patients from the 2014-2015 NRD. ICD 9 equivalents to the factors were used in the validation process.