Journal of evaluation in clinical practice
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Urgent readmission to hospital is commonly used to measure hospital quality of care. Hospitals that measure the proportion of urgent readmissions judged avoidable need to know previously published rates for comparison. In this study, we generated a literature-based estimate for the proportion of 30-day urgent readmissions deemed avoidable for hospitals to use to gauge their performance in avoidable readmissions. ⋯ Less than one in four readmissions were deemed avoidable. Health system planners need to use caution in interpreting all cause readmission statistics as they are only partially influenced by quality of care.