Trends in Potentially Preventable Inpatient Hospital Admissions and Emergency Department Visits

Excerpt

This Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Statistical Brief presents rates of potentially preventable inpatient hospital stays from 2005 through 2012 and rates of potentially preventable ED visits that did not result in inpatient admission (i.e., treat-and-release visits) from 2008 through 2012. Potentially preventable stays and ED visits were estimated using the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Prevention Quality Indicators (PQIs) software version 4.4. We examined the rate of potentially preventable inpatient stays for all conditions and for acute and chronic conditions grouped together. We also examined potentially preventable stays and visits for each underlying individual condition separately. Rates of potentially preventable hospitalizations and ED visits are age-sex adjusted and calculated among adults aged 18 years and older. Because the PQIs are defined using the first-listed diagnosis, they exclude records that fall in the maternal/neonatal service line that have a pregnancy-related first-listed diagnosis. For comparison, we present age-sex adjusted rates of total inpatient stays and treat-and-release ED visits, which also were calculated among adults aged 18 years and older and exclude records that fall in the maternal/neonatal service line. Only differences greater than 10 percent are noted in the text.