Journal of clinical epidemiology
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Urgent readmission rates can be used to infer differences in avoidable readmission rates between hospitals.
Most of the urgent readmissions are unavoidable. This study developed a method that used observed urgent readmission rates to compare the latent avoidable readmission rates between the two hospitals. ⋯ Urgent readmission rates can be used to estimate the probability that avoidable readmission rates differ significantly between the two hospitals. The probability that avoidable readmission rates differ significantly between hospitals is small even when significant differences in urgent 30-day readmission rates exist. Our results show that 30-day urgent readmission rates should be used very cautiously to compare hospital quality of care.