Assessing Vascular Surgery Readmission Data in Commonly Used Quality Metric Programs

Area of Science:

• Vascular Surgery
• Healthcare Quality Metrics
• Patient Outcomes

Background:

• Thirty-day hospital readmissions are a key metric for evaluating hospital performance and patient outcomes.
• Vascular surgery has among the highest and most costly readmission rates.
• Accurate readmission data is crucial for improving care quality and reimbursement, but data accuracy is challenged by misclassification.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze factors associated with procedure-related versus non-procedure-related vascular surgery readmissions.
• To identify predictors of procedure-related readmissions within 30 days.
• To inform strategies for reducing vascular surgery readmissions.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of vascular surgery patients readmitted within 30 days (2018-2023).
• Utilized data from the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) and Vizient registries.
• Logistic regression was used to identify predictors of procedure-related readmissions.

Main Results:

• 9.2% of 2375 vascular surgery operations resulted in readmission within 30 days.
• 40.6% of readmissions were procedure-related, while 59.4% were non-procedure-related.
• Functional dependence and current smoking were associated with lower odds of procedure-related readmissions.

Conclusions:

• Vascular surgery readmissions are frequent and costly.
• Functional health status and smoking status influence readmission reasons, suggesting medical decompensation over surgical complications.
• Targeted interventions and accurate documentation are essential for reducing readmissions and improving benchmarking.