Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Endosc. Sep 16, 2018; 10(9): 200-209
Published online Sep 16, 2018. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v10.i9.200
Frequency of hospital readmission and care fragmentation in gastroparesis: A nationwide analysis
Emad Qayed, Mayssan Muftah
Emad Qayed, Department of Medicine, Division of Digestive Diseases, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30303, United States
Emad Qayed, Department of Gastroenterology, Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta, GA 30303, United States
Mayssan Muftah, Department of Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30303, United States
Author contributions: Qayed E designed the research, analyzed the data, drafted and revised the manuscript; Muftah M drafted and revised the manuscript; all authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and deemed exempt from review by the Emory University Institutional Review Board because the database is publicly available and does not contain any identifiable information that can be linked to any specific subject.
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was not required as this research involves an administrative database and does not contain any identifiable information that can be linked to any specific subject.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors report no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Emad Qayed, MD, MPH, FACG, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Digestive Diseases, Emory University School of Medicine, 49 Jesse Hill Jr Street, Atlanta, GA 30303, United States. eqayed@emory.edu
Telephone: +1-404-7781685 Fax: +1-404-7781681
Received: February 20, 2018
Peer-review started: February 20, 2018
First decision: March 9, 2018
Revised: March 12, 2018
Accepted: April 2, 2018
Article in press: April 2, 2018
Published online: September 16, 2018
Processing time: 208 Days and 13.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Gastroparesis is associated with high 30-d readmission, and 1 in 4 readmissions occur at a hospital different from the index hospitalization. Measuring same-hospital readmission rates without accounting for non-index hospitalization underestimates readmission rates by 20%. Several factors are associated with 30-d readmission and care fragmentation, and can play a role in implementing effective preventive interventions to high-risk patients. Care fragmentation is associated with increased cost of readmissions and longer hospital stays. Optimizing post discharge care coordination and data sharing between hospitals could decrease care fragmentation and cost of care.