Understanding the Burden of IBD-Related Hospital Readmissions

A poster presentation at the 2016 Advances in IBD Conference outlined how inflammatory bowel diseases affects hospital readmissions in the United States.

“Hospital readmissions are a key metric associated with quality of health care,” Bharati Kochar, MD, a gastroenterology fellow at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and colleagues wrote. “While inflammatory bowel disease patients are frequently hospitalized for disease exacerbations or surgeries, there are a paucity of data on factors associated with hospital readmissions in inflammatory bowel diseases patients from nationally representative datasets.”

In order to determine the burden of hospital readmissions for inflammatory bowel disease patients, the researchers studied 2013 patient information from a nationally representative readmission representative database. They determined the details of index hospitalization and readmission for 80,203 Crohn’s disease and 48,900 ulcerative colitis patients aged older than 18 years with inflammatory bowel disease. The research analyzed results using SAS survey procedures. The researchers noted that the median length of stay for the index hospitalizations was 3.1 days among Crohn’s disease patients and 3.5 days among ulcerative colitis patients.

Among the key findings, study results showed that 90-day readmissions occurred among 25% of Crohn’s disease patients and 20% of ulcerative colitis patients.

They also found that the costs burden associated with readmissions for inflammatory bowel diseases is substantial. Results showed that the average cost associated with Crohn’s disease readmission was $46,203, while the costs associated with ulcerative colitis readmission was $54,776. 

Dr Kochar and colleagues concluded that in 2013, inflammatory bowel disease readmissions accounted for $1.5 billion in total estimated costs. —David Costill