The emphasis in recent years on reducing hospital readmissions has not resulted in an increase in post-discharge deaths among Medicare patients.

Or so concludes a new study published in JAMA.

Looking at outcomes associated with Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program, the study “Association of Changing Hospital Readmission Rates With Mortality Rates After Hospital Discharge” found that

… of more than 5 million Medicare fee-for-service hospitalizations for heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, and pneumonia from 2008 to 2014, reductions in hospital 30-day readmission rates were weakly but significantly correlated with reductions in 30-day mortality rates after hospital discharge.

Learn more about the study, its methodology, and its findings here, on the JAMA Network web site.