Development of a Clinical Registry-Based 30-Day Readmission Measure for Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting Surgery

This registry study which links Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) data with Medicare data examined the rates and predictors of readmission within 30-days of coronary artery surgery. The median readmission rate across 846 hospitals was 16.8%. Predictors of readmission within 30-days of surgery were dialysis, chronic lung disease, creatinine, insulin-dependent diabetes, obesity in women, female gender, immunosupression, pre-operative atrial fibrillation, age, recent MI and low body surface area in men. The c-index for the developed model was 0.648 with 6.1% of hospitals having statistcially worse or better readmission rates than expected.