Routine follow-up with a primary care provider reduced 30-day readmissions for patients who had undergone open thoracic aortic aneurysm repair, according to a poster published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.
Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study of 42,935 Medicare beneficiaries who were discharged from U.S. hospitals after open thoracic aortic aneurysm repair between 2003 and 2010. Around 20 percent of patients, that is 8,429 of them, were readmitted within 30 days after the procedure and more than 42 percent of readmissions occurred 11 days after discharge.
The study found, however, that follow-up with a primary care provider reduced the likelihood of 30-day readmission following the procedure by more than 30 percent. Also, readmissions were less likely to occur in hospital referral regions with high primary care utilization as compared to regions with low rates of primary care utilization.
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