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Hospital Readmission of Patients with Diabetes

Current Diabetes Reports volume 15, Article number: 17 (2015) Cite this article

A Correction to this article was published on 13 March 2018

This article has been updated

Abstract

Hospital readmission is a high-priority health care quality measure and target for cost reduction. Despite broad interest in readmission, relatively little research has focused on patients with diabetes. The burden of diabetes among hospitalized patients, however, is substantial, growing, and costly, and readmissions contribute a significant portion of this burden. Reducing readmission rates of diabetic patients has the potential to greatly reduce health care costs while simultaneously improving care. Risk factors for readmission in this population include lower socioeconomic status, racial/ethnic minority, comorbidity burden, public insurance, emergent or urgent admission, and a history of recent prior hospitalization. Hospitalized patients with diabetes may be at higher risk of readmission than those without diabetes. Potential ways to reduce readmission risk are inpatient education, specialty care, better discharge instructions, coordination of care, and post-discharge support. More studies are needed to test the effect of these interventions on the readmission rates of patients with diabetes.

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Change history

  • 13 March 2018

    This article was originally published with errors that were introduced during the editing process. The corrected version of this article appears below.

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Conflict of Interest

Daniel J. Rubin has received grant support from Merck for a subcontract for inpatient diabetes research.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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  1. Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, School of Medicine, Temple University, 3322 N. Broad ST., Ste 205, Philadelphia, PA, 19140, USA

    Daniel J. Rubin

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Correspondence to Daniel J. Rubin.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Hospital Management of Diabetes

A correction to this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11892-018-0989-1.

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Rubin, D.J. Hospital Readmission of Patients with Diabetes. Curr Diab Rep 15, 17 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11892-015-0584-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11892-015-0584-7

Keywords

  • Hospital readmission
  • Inpatient diabetes
  • Transitional care
  • Transitions of care
  • Risk factors
  • Discharge support