Impact of intraop adverse events on readmissions

Editor's Note

In this study from the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, major intraoperative adverse events were independently associated with a two-fold increase in readmissions.

Of 9,274 surgical procedures analyzed, 921 resulted in readmission. Of these, 183 had confirmed intraoperative adverse events, 73 of which were major events.

Procedures with major events had a higher readmission rate than those without an event (24.7% vs 9.8%).

Preventing intraoperative adverse events or mitigating their effects should be a quality improvement target to reduce readmissions, the researchers concluded.

Hospital-wide readmission rates recently became a recognized benchmarking quality metric. We sought to study the independent impact of major intraoperative adverse events (iAEs) on 30-day readmission in abdominal surgery.