Study: Readmissions to ED are on the rise and costly

A study published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that patients who return to the emergency department (ED) place a strain on the healthcare system and surpass the costs of the initial visit.

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco and Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies found that within three days of an initial ED visit, 8.2% of patients had a revisit and 32% of those revisits took place at a different institution. As a result, revisits after an initial ED encounter are more frequent than previously reported because many occur outside the initial facility, the study found.

For more information, read the study abstract.