A new report suggests that hospitals can have the greatest impact on reducing preventable readmissions within seven days of discharge and not through the 30-day mark at which they are currently judged by Medicare.

According to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine,

Early readmissions were more likely to be preventable and amenable to hospital-based interventions.  Late readmissions were less likely to be preventable and were more amenable to ambulatory and home-based interventions.

The study, conducted at 10 academic medical centers and involving more than 800 of their patients who had been readmitted to the hospital, concludes that readmissions within seven days may more accurately reflect the quality of care hospitals provide than the 30-day measure applied by Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program.

To learn more about the report, its findings, and their implications, go here, to the web site of the Annals of Internal Medicine, to see the study “Preventability of Early Versus Late Hospital Readmissions in a National Cohort of General Medicine Patients.”