Hospital Readmissions

Mitigating unplanned hospital returns – known as “readmissions” – is a national health care priority, part of a larger effort to improve delivery of health care and reduce unnecessary cost. That’s because readmissions are expensive, and often preventable.

Generally, a hospital readmission is an unplanned return to the same hospital or another acute-care hospital within 30 days of discharge, for any reason.

To reduce readmissions, AHN creates and communicates safe discharge plans for our patients, schedules follow-up appointments with care providers, prescribes and supplies medications prior to patient discharge, and delivers additional health services (such as home care) as needed after the patient leaves the hospital.  

Readmission rates are publicly reported through the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) site. The chart below illustrates AHN’s readmission rate performance in comparison to peer hospitals across the country.